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FICTION

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ASTOUNDING

DORMIPHONE

A Great Scientific Discovery

Brain in concentrated thought.

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Astounding

SCIENCE FICTION

volume lvi • number 6 February 1956

Serial

Double Star Robert A. Heinlein 8

(Part One of Three Parts)

Novelette

Clerical Error Mark Cliiton 69

Short Stories

The Last Thousand Miles Dean McLaughlin 54

Silent Brother . Paul Janvier 100

Chains of Command Reg Rhein 116

The Prisoner Christopher Anvil 12 1

Readers' Departments

The Editor’s Page

The Analytical Laboratory

In Times to Come

The Reference Library P. Schuyler Miller

Brass Tacks

6

99

120

140

149

Editor: JOHN W. CAMPBELL, JR. Advertising Manager: WALTER J. McBRIDE

Advertising Director: ROBERT E. PARK Assistant Editor: KAY TARRANT

COVER BY FREAS • Illustrations by Emsh, Freas and van Dongen
SYMBOL: Wavicle; the uncertain nature of wave or particle.

The editorial contents have not been published before, are protected by copyright and cannot be reprinted without
publisher's permission. All stories in this magazine are fiction. No actual persons are designated by name or
character. Any similarity is coincidental.

Astotindinft SCIENCE FICTION published monthly by Street & Smith Publications, Incorporated at 575 Madison
Avenue, New York 22, N. Y. Arthur Z. Gray. President: Ralph R. Whittaker, Jr.. Executive Vice-President;
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4 • NEXT ISSUE ON SALE FEBRUARY 21, T956 •

Can you think faster

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You will find building and using
GENIACS a wonderful experience;
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EDITORIAL

THE SCIENCE OF PSIONICS

This is going to be an article about
articles; I’m presenting you, the read-
ers, with one of my own, personal,
editorial problems, because it is, es-
sentially, ours — yours and mine — yet
I alone can take immediate action on
it. I am the executive officer in this
system; you’re the electorate. You
determine the policy; I have the
problem of trying to find out what
you’ve determined, and then carry-
ing it out.

We published a letter signed T.
O. Jothun, in the September, 1955
issue; the name was a protected pen
name, as many realized. The letter
discussed experiments involving the
use of high-frequency radio radia-
tions and ESP, and suggested an
article on the subject. I have seen
the article; unfortunately, the author
has interesting material, but, like
many another scientist, can’t use the
special technology of a different field
of human activity. He’s about as
competent a writer of articles as
he is a surgeon; no one expects every

6

man to be an expert surgeon, and
there is, equally, no reason to expect
every man to be a trained and expert
writer.

However — that letter drew more
reader-response than any other item
in the magazine. It’s dear that there
is a very strong and dynamic interest
in the type of material Jothun offer-
ed. So be it; Jothun is not, by any
means, the only source. There is, in
fact, far more such activity taking
place than is realized; the problem
is that there is no medium of com-
munication by which the workers in
that field can communicate to each
other, or with the public. No stand-
ard scientific journal can handle the
material, because it isn’t science. It
isn’t physics, chemistry, medicine,
electronics. It’s easy to go down the
entire list of sciences, and define it
by exclusion; it isn’t any of them.

One of the great problems of the
whole ESP-psionics field is that it
can, to date, be defined only by ex-
( Continued on page 156)

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

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ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

DOUBLE STAR

Starting a new three-part novel of a pip-
squeak, conceited little actor — who had a power
neither he nor anyone else had guessed !

BY ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

DOUBLE STAR

9

I

If a man walks in, dressed like a
hick and acting as if he owns the
place, he’s a spaceman.

It is a logical necessity. His pro-
fession makes him feel like boss of
all creation; when he sets foot dirt-
side he is slumming among the
peasants. As for his sartorial inele-
gance, a man who is in uniform
nine-tenths of the time and is more
used to deep space than to civiliza-
tion can hardly be expected to know
how to dress properly. He is a suck-
er for the alleged tailors who swarm
around every spaceport peddling
"ground outfits.”

I could see that this big-boned
fellow had been dressed by Omar
the Tentmaker — padded shoulders
that were too big to start with,
shorts cut so that they crawled up
his hairy thighs as he sat down, a
ruffled chemise that might have look-
ed well on a cow.

But I kept my opinion to myself
and bought him a drink with my
last half Imperial, considering it an
investment, spacemen being the way
they are about money. "Hot jets!”
I said as we touched glasses. He
gave me a quick glance.

That was my initial mistake in
dealing with Dak Broadbent. In-
stead of answering, "Clear space!”
or "Safe grounding!” as he should
have, he looked me over and said
softly, . "A nice sentiment, but to
the wrong man. I’ve never been
out.”

That was another good place to

keep my mouth shut. Spacemen did
not often come to the bar of Casa
Manana; it was not their sort of
hotel and it’s miles from the port.
When one shows up in ground
clothes, seeks a dark corner of the
bar, and objects to being called a
spaceman, that’s his business. I had
picked that spot myself so that I
could see without being seen —
I owed a little money here and there
at the time, nothing important but
embarrassing. I should have assumed
that he had his reasons, too, and
respected them.

But my vocal cords lived their
own life, wild and free. "Don’t give
me that, shipmate,” I replied. "If
you’re a groundhog, I’m Mayor of
Tycho City. I’ll wager you’ve done
more drinking on Mars,” I added,
noticing the cautious way he lifted
his glass — a dead giveaway of low-
gravity habits — "than you’ve ever
done on Earth.”

"Keep your voice down!” he cut
in, without moving his lips. "What
makes you sure that I am a voy-
ageur? You don’t know me.”

"Sorry,” I said. "You can be any-
thing you like. But I’ve got eyes.
You gave yourself away the minute
you walked in.”

He said something under his
breath. "How?”

"Don’t let it worry you. I doubt
if anyone else noticed. But I see
things other people don’t see.” I
handed him my card, a little smugly
perhaps. "There is only one Lorenzo
Smythe, the One-Man Stock Com-
pany. Yes, I’m 'The Great Loren-

10

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

zo’ . . . stereo, canned opera, legit
— Pantominist and Mimicry Artist
Extraordinary.’ ’’

He read my card and dropped it
into a sleeve pocket — which an-
noyed me; those cards had cost me
money, genuine imitation hand en-
graving. "I see your point,” he said
quietly, "but what was wrong with
the way I behaved?”

"I’ll show you,” I said. "I’ll walk
to the door like a groundhog and
come back the way you walk.
Watch.” I did so, making the trip
back in a slightly exaggerated ver-
sion of his walk to allow for his
untrained eye — feet sliding softly
along the floor as if it were deck-
plates, weight carried forward and
balanced from the hips, hands a
trifle forward and clear of the body,
ready to grasp.

There are a dozen other details
which can’t be set down in words;
the point is, you have to be a space-
man when you do it, with a
spaceman’s alert body and uncon-
scious balance — you have to live it.
A city man blunders along on
smooth floors all his life, steady
floors with Earth-normal gravity,
and will trip over a cigarette paper,
like as not. Not so a spaceman.

"See what I mean?” I asked, slip-
ping back into my seat.

"I’m afraid I do,” he admitted
sourly. "Did I walk like that?”

"Yes.”

"Hm-m-m . . . maybe I should
take lessons from you.”

"You could do worse,” I admit-
ted.

He sat there, looking me over,
then started to speak — changed his
mind and wriggled a finger at the
bartender to refill our glasses. When
the drinks came, he paid for them,
drank his, and slid out of his seat
all in one smooth motion. "Wait
for me,” he said quietly.

With a drink he had bought sit-
ting in front of me I could not re-
fuse. Nor did I want to; he interest-
ed me. I liked him, even on ten
minutes acquaintance; he was the
sort of big ugly-handsome galoot
that women go for and men take
orders from.

He threaded his way gracefully
through the room and passed a table
of four Martians near the door. I
didn’t like Martians. I did not fancy
having a thing that looks like a tree
trunk topped off by a sun helmet
claiming the privileges of a man. I
did not like the way they grew
pseudo-limbs; it reminded me of
snakes crawling out of their holes. I
did not like the fact that they could
look all directions at once without
turning their heads — if they had had
heads, which of course they don’t.
And I could not stand their
smell !

Nobody could accuse me of race
prejudice. I didn’t care what a man’s
color, race, or religion was. But men
were men, whereas Martians were
things. They weren’t even animals
to my way of thinking. I'd rather
have had a wart hog around me any
day. Permitting them in restaurants

DOUBLE STAR

11

and bars used by men struck me as
outrageous. But there was the
Treaty, of course, so what could I
do?

These four had not been there
when I came in, or I would have
whiffed them. For that matter, they
certainly could not have been there
a few moments earlier when I had
walked to the door and back. Now
there they were, standing on their
pedestals around a table, pretending
to be people. I had not even heard
the air-conditioning speed up.

The free drink in front of me
did not attract me; I simply wanted
my host to come back so that I could
leave politely. It suddenly occurred
to me that he had glanced over that
way just before he had left so hastily
and I wondered if the Martians had
anything to do with it. I looked
over at them, trying to see if they
were paying attention to our table
— but how could you tell what a
Martian was looking at or what it
was thinking? That was another
thing I didn’t like about them.

I sat there for several minutes,
fiddling with my drink and won-
dering what had happened to my
spaceman friend. I had hoped that
his hospitality might extend to din-
ner, and, if we became sufficiently
simpatico, possibly even to a small
temporary loan. My other prospects
were — I admit it! — slender. The last
two times I had tried to call my
agent his autosecretary had simply
recorded the message, and, unless I
deposited coins in the door, my room
would not open to me that night —

12

that was how low my fortunes had
ebbed: reduced to sleeping in a
coin-operated cubicle.

In the midst of my melancholy
ponderings a waiter touched me on
the elbow. "Call for you, sir.”

"Eh? Very well, friend, will you
fetch an instrument to the table?”

"Sorry, sir, but I can’t transfer
it. Booth twelve in the lobby.”

"Oh. Thank you,” I answered,
making it as warm as possible since
I was unable to tip him. I swung
wide around the Martians as I went
out.

I soon saw why the call had not
been brought to the table; number
twelve was a maximum-security
booth, sight, sound, and scramble.
The tank showed no image and did
not clear even after the door locked
behind me. It remained milky until
I sat down and placed my face
within pickup, then the opalescen*
clouds melted away and I found
myself looking at my spaceman
friend.

"Sorry to walk out on you,” he
said quickly, "but I was in a hurry.
I want you to come at once to room
twenty-one-oh-six of the Eisen-
hower.”

He offered no explanation. The
Eisenhower is just as unlikely a hotel
for spacemen as Casa Manana. I
could smell trouble. You don’t pick
up a stranger in a bar and then in-
sist that he come to a hotel room —
well, not one of the same sex, at
least.

"Why?” I asked.

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

The spaceman got that look pe-
culiar to men who are used to being
obeyed without question; I studied
it with professional interest — it’s
not the same as anger; it is more
like a thundercloud just before a
storm. Then he got himself in hand
and answered quietly, "Lorenzo,
there is no time to explain. Are you
open to a job?”

"Do you mean a professional en-
gagement?” I answered slowly.
For a horrid instant I suspected that
he was offering me . . . well, you
know — a job. Thus far I had kept
my professional pride intact, despite
the. slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune.

"Oh, professional, of course!” he
answered quickly. "This requires the
best actor we can get.”

I did not let my relief show in
my face. It was true that I was ready
for any professional work — I would
gladly have played the balcony in
"Romeo and Juliet” — but it does not
do to be eager. "What is the nature
of the engagement?” I asked. "My
calendar is rather full.”

He brushed it aside. "I can’t ex-
plain over ' the phone. Perhaps you
don’t know it, but any scrambler
circuit can be unscrambled — with the
proper equipment. Shag over here
fast!”

He was eager; therefore I could
afford not to be eager. "Now really,”
I protested, "what do you think I
am? A bellman? Or an untried ju-
venile anxious for the privilege of
carrying a spear? I am Lorenzo!”
I threw up my chin and looked

offended. "What is your offer?”

"Uh . . . damn it, I can’t go into
it over the phone. How much do
you get?”

"Eh? You are asking my profes-
sional salary?”

"Yes, yes!”

"For a single appearance? Or by
the week? Or an option contract?”

"Uh, never mind. What do you
get by the day?”

"My minimum fee for a one-eve-
ning date is one hundred Imperials.”
This was simple truth. Oh, I have
been coerced at times into paying
some scandalous kickbacks, but the
voucher never read less than my
proper fee. A man has his stand-
ards. I’d rather starve.

"Very well,” he answered quick-
ly, "one hundred Imperials in cash,
laid in your hand the minute you
show up here. But hurry!”

"Eh?” I realized with sudden dis-
may that I could as easily have said
two hundred, or even two-fifty. "But
I have not agreed to accept the en-
gagement.”

"Never mind that! We’ll talk it
over when you get here. The hun-
dred is yours even if you turn us
down. If you accept — well, call it a
bonus, over and above your salary.
Now will you sign off and get over
here?”

I bowed. "Certainly, sir. Have
patience.”

Fortunately the Eisenhower is not
too far from the Casa, for I did not
even have a minum for tube fare.
However, although the art of stroll-

DOUBLE STAR

13

ing is almost lost, I savor it — and
it gave me time to collect my
thoughts. I was no fool; I was aware
that when another man is too
anxious to force money on one, it
is time to examine the cards, for
there is almost certainly something
illegal, or dangerous, or both, in-
volved in the matter. I was not un-
duly fussy about legality qua
legality; I agreed with the Bard that
the Law is often an idiot. But in
the main I had stayed on the right
side of the street.

But presently I realized that I had
insufficient facts, so I put it out of
my mind, threw my cape over my
right shoulder and strode along, en-
joying the mild autumn weather and
the rich and varied odors of the
metropolis. On arrival I decided to
forego the main entrance and took
a bounce tube from the sub-base-
ment to the twenty-first floor, I hav-
ing at the time a vague feeling that
this was not the place to let my pub-
lic recognize me. My voyageur
friend let me in. "You took long
enough,” he snapped.

"Indeed?” I let it go at that and
looked around me. It was an expen-
sive suite, as I had expected, but
it was littered and there were at
least a dozen used glasses and as
many coffee cups scattered here and
there; it took no skill to see that I
was merely the latest of many visit-
ors. Sprawled on a couch, scowling
at me, was another man whom I
tabbed tentatively as a spaceman. I
glanced inquiringly but no introduc-
tion was offered.

14

"Well, you’re here, at least. Let’s
get down to business.”

"Surely. Which brings to mind,”
I added, "there was mention of a
bonus, or retainer.”

"Oh, yes.” He turned to the man
on the couch. "Jock, pay him.”
"For what?”

"Pay him!”

I now knew which one was boss
— although, as I was to learn, there
was usually little doubt when Dak
Broadbent was in a room. The other
fellow stood up quickly, still scowl-
ing, and counted out to me a fifty
and five tens. I tucked it away casual-
ly without checking it and said, "I
am at your disposal, gentlemen.”
The big man chewed his lip.
"First, I want your solemn oath not
even to talk in your sleep about this
job.”

"If my simple word is not good,
is my oath better?” I glanced at the
smaller man, slouched again on the
couch. "I don’t believe we have met.
I am Lorenzo.”

He glanced at me, looked away.
My barroom acquaintance said hast-
ily, "Names don’t matter ' in this.”
"No? Before my revered father
died he made me promise him three
things: First, never to mix whiskey
with anything but water; second, al-
ways to ignore anonymous letters,
and lastly, never to talk with a stran-
ger who refuses to give his name.
Good day, sirs.” I turned toward
the door, their hundred Imperials
warm in my pocket.

"Hold it!” I paused. He went on,
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

"You are perfectly right. My name
is — ”

"Skipper!”

"Stow it, Jock. I’m Dak Broad-
bent; that’s Jacques Dubois glaring
at us. We’re both voyageurs — mas-
ter pilots, all classes, any accelera-
tion.’’

I bowed. "Lorenzo Smythe,’’ I
said modestly, "jongleur and artist —
care of the Lambs Club.’’ I made a
fhental note to pay my dues.

"Good. Jock, try smiling for a
change. Lorenzo, you agree to keep
our business secret?”

"Under the rose. This is a dis-
cussion between gentlemen.”

"Whether you take the job or
not?”

"Whether we reach agreement or
not. I am human, but, short of ille-
gal methods of questioning, your
confidences are safe with me.”

"I am well aware of what neo-
dexocaine will do to a man’s fore-
brain, Lorenzo. We don’t expect the
impossible.”

"Dak,” Dubois said urgently,
"this is a mistake. We should at
least — ”

"Shut up, Jock. I want no hypno-
tists around at this point. Lorenzo,
we want you to do an impersona-
tion job. It has to be so perfect that
no one — I mean no one — will ever
know it took place. Can you do that
sort of a job?”

I frowned. "The first question is
not 'Can I’ but 'Will I?’ What are
the circumstances?”

"Uh, we’ll go into details later.
Roughly, it is the ordinary doubling

job for a well-known public figure.
The difference is that the imperson-
ation will have to be so perfect as
to fool people who know him well
and must see him close up. It won’t
be just reviewing a parade from a
grandstand, or pinning medals on
girl scouts.” He looked at me
shrewdly. "It will take a real artist.”

"No,” I said at once.

"Huh? You don’t know anything
about the job yet. If your conscience
is bothering you, let me assure you
that you will not be working against
the interests of the man you will
impersonate — nor against anyone’s
legitimate interests. This is a job
that really needs to be done.”

"No.”

"Well, for Pete’s sake, why? You
don’t even know how much we will

pay-”

"Pay is no object,” I said firmly.
"I am an actor, not a double.”

"I don’t understand you. There
are lots of actors picking up spare
money making public appearances
for celebrities.”

"I regard them as prostitutes, not
colleagues. Let me make myself
clear. Does an author respect a ghost
writer? Would you respect a painter
who allowed another man to sign
his work — for money? Possibly the
spirit of the artist is foreign to you,
sir, yet perhaps I may put it in terms
germane to your own profession.
Would you, simply for money, be
content to pilot a ship while some
other man, not possessing your high
art, wore the uniform, received the

DOUBLE STAR

15

credit, was publicly acclaimed as the
master? Would you?”

Dubois snorted. "How much
money?”

Broadbent frowned at him. "I
think I understand your objection.”
"To the artist, sir, kudos comes
first. Money is merely the mundane
means whereby he is enabled to
create his art.”

"Hm-m-m . . . all right, so you
won’t do it just for the money.
Would you do it for other reasons?
If you felt that it had to be done
and you were the only one who
could do it successfully?”

"I concede the possibility; I can-
not imagine the circumstances.”
"You won’t have to imagine
them; we’ll explain them to you.”
Dubois jumped up off the couch.
"Now see here, Dak, you can’t — ”
"Cut it, Jock! He has to know.”
"He doesn’t have to know now
— and here. And you haven’t any
right to jeopardize everybody else
by telling him. You don’t know a
thing about him.”

"It’s a calculated risk.” Broadbent
turned back to me.

Dubois grabbed his arm, swung
him around. "Calculated risk be
damned ! Dak, I’ve strung along
with you in the past — but this time,
before I’ll let you shoot off your
face, well, one or the other of us
isn’t going to be in any shape to
talk.”

Broadbent looked startled, then
grinned coldly down at Dubois.
"Think you’re up to it, Jock old
son?”

16

Dubois glared up at him, did not
flinch. Broadbent was a head taller
and outweighed him by twenty kilos.

I found myself for the first time
liking Dubois; I am always touched
by the gallant audacity of a kitten,
the fighting heart of a bantam cock,
or the willingness of a little man
to die in his tracks rather than
knuckle under — and, while I did not
expect Broadbent to kill him, I did
think that I was about to see Du-*'
bois used as a dust rag.

I had no thought of interfering.
Every man is entitled to elect the
time and manner of his own de-
struction.

I could see tension grow. Then
suddenly Broadbent laughed and
clapped Dubois on the shoulder.
"Good for you, Jock!” He turned
to me and said quietly, "Will you
excuse us a few moments? My
friend and I must make heap big
smoke.”

The suite was equipped with a
hush corner, enclosing the autograph
and the phone. Broadbent took Du-
bois by the arm and led him . over
there; they stood and talked
urgently.

Sometimes such facilities in pub-
lic places like hotels are not all that
they might be; the sound waves
fail to cancel out completely. But
the Eisenhower is a luxury house
and in this case, at least, the equip-
ment worked perfectly; I could see
their lips move but I could hear no
sound.

But I could indeed see their lips
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

move. Broadbent’s face was toward
me and Dubois I could glimpse in
a wall mirror. When I was per-
forming in my famous mentalist
act, I found out why my father had
beaten my tail until I learned the
silent language of lips — in my men-
talist act I always performed in a
brightly lighted hall and made use
of spectacles which — but never
mind; I could read lips.

Dubois was saying: "Dak, you
bloody, stupid, unprintable, illegal-
and-highly-improbable obscenity, do
you want us both to wind up count-
ing rocks on Titan? This conceited
pipsqueak will spill his guts.”

I almost missed Broadbent’s an-
swer. Conceited indeed ! Aside from
a cold appreciation of my own
genius I felt that I was a modest
man.

Broadbent: . . Doesn’t matter

if the game is crooked when it’s the
only game in town. Jock, there is
nobody else we can use.”

Dubois: "All right, then get Doc
Scortia over here, hypnotize him and
shoot him the happy juice. But don’t
tell him the score — not until he’s
conditioned, not while we are still
on dirt.”

Broadbent: "Uh, Scortia himself
told me that we could not depend
on hypno and drugs, not for the
performance we need. We’ve got
to have his co-operation, his intelli-
gent co-operation.”

Dubois snorted. "What intelli-
gence? Look at him. Ever see a
rooster strutting through a barn-
yard? Sure, he’s the right size and

shape and his skull looks a good bit
like the chief’s — but there is nothing
behind it. He’ll lose his nerve, blow
his top, and give the whole thing
away. He can’t play the part — he’s
just a ham actor!”

If the immortal Caruso had been
charged with singing off key, he
could not have been more affronted
than I. But I trust I justified my
claim to the mantle of Burbage and
Boolh at that moment; I went on
buffing my nails and ignored it . . .
merely noting that I would some
day make friend Dubois both laugh
and cry within the span of twenty
seconds. I waited a few moments
more, then stood up and approached
the hush corner. When they saw
that I intended to enter it, they both
shut up. I said quietly,’ "Never
mind, gentlemen, I have changed
my mind.”

Dubois looked relieved. "You
don’t want the job.”

"I mean that I accept the en-
gagement. You need not make ex-
planations. I have been assured by
friend Broadbent that the work is
such as not to trouble my conscience
— and I trust him. He has assured
me that he needs an actor. But the
business affairs of the producer are
not my concern. I accept.”

Dubois looked angry but shut up.
I expected Broadbent to look pleased
and relieved; instead he looked wor-
ried. "All right,” he agreed, "let’s
get on with it. Lorenzo, I don’t
know exactly how long we will need
you. No more than a few days, I’m

DOUBLE STAR

17

certain . . . and you will be on dis-
play only an hour or so once or
twice in that time.”

"That does not matter, as long
as I have time to study the role —
the impersonation. But approximate-
ly how many days will you need me ?
I should notify my agent.”

"Oh, no! Don’t do that.”

"Well . . . how long? As much
as a week?”

"It will be less than that — or
we’re sunk.”

"Eh?”

"Never mind. Will a hundred
Imperials a day suit you?”

I hesitated, recalling how easily
he had met my minimum just to
interview me . . . and decided this
was a time to be gracious. I waved
it aside. "Let’s not speak of such

things. No doubt you will present
me with an honorarium consonant
with the worth of my performance.”

"All right, all right.” Broadbent
turned away impatiently. "Jock, call
the held. Then call Langston and
tell him we’re starting Plan Mardi
Gras. Synchronize with him. Lor-
enzo — ” He motioned for me to
follow and strode into the bath. He
opened a small case and demanded,
“Can you do anything with this
junk?”

"Junk” it was — the sort of' over-
priced and unprofessional make-up
kit that is sold over the counter to
stage-struck youngsters. I stared at
it with mild disgust. "Do I under-
stand, sir, that you expect me to
start an impersonation now? With-
out time for study?”

"Huh? No, no, no! I want you
to change your face — on the outside
chance that someone might recog-
nize you as we leave here.’ That’s
possible, isn’t it?”

18

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

I answered stiffly that being rec-
ognized in public was a burden that
all celebrities were forced to carry.
I did not add that it was certain
that countless people would recog-
nize the Great Lorenzo in any pub-
lic place.

"O. K. So change your phiz so
it's not yours.” He left abruptly.

I sighed and looked over the
child's toys he had handed me, no
doubt thinking they were the work-
ing tools of my profession — grease
paints suitable for clowns, reeking
spirit gum, crepe hair which seemed
to have been raveled from Aunt
Maggie’s parlor carpet. Not an ounce
of Silicoflesh, no electric brushes, no
modern amenities of any sort. But
a true artist can do wonders with
a burnt match, or oddments such
as one might find in a kitchen — and
his own genius. I arranged the lights
and let myself fall into creative
reverie.

There are several ways to keep a
well-known face from being recog-
nized. The simplest is misdirection.
Place a man in uniform and his face
is not likely to be noticed — do you
recall the face of the last policeman
you encountered? Could you identify
him if you saw him next in mufti?
On the same principle is the atten-
tion-getting special feature. Equip a
man with an enormous nose, dis-
figured perhaps with acne rosacea;
the vulgar will stare in fascination
at the nose itself, the polite will
turn away — but neither will see the
face.

I decided against this primitive

maneuver because I judged that my
employer wished me not to be no-
ticed at all, rather than remembered
for an odd feature without being
recognized. This is much more diffi-
cult; anyone can be conspicuous but
it takes real skill not to be noticed.
I needed a face as commonplace, as
impossible to remember, as the true
face of the immortal Alec Guinness.
Unfortunately my aristocratic fea-
tures are entirely too distinguished,
too handsome- — a regrettable handi-
cap for a character actor. As my
father used to say, "Larry, you are
too damned pretty! If you don’t get
off your lazy duff and learn the busi-
ness, you are going to spend fifteen
years as a juvenile, under the mis-
taken impression that you are an
actor — then wind up selling candy
in the lobby. 'Stupid’ and 'pretty’
are the two worst vices in show
business — and you’re both.”

Then he would take off his belt
and stimulate my brain. Father was
a practical psychologist and be-
lieved that warming the glutei
maximi with a strap drew excess
blood away from a bey’s brain.
While the theory may have been
shaky, the results justified the
method; by the time I was fifteen I
could stand on my head on a slack
wire and quote page after page of
Shakespeare and Shaw — or steal a
scene simply by lighting a cigarette.

I was deep in the mood of crea-
tion when Broadbent stuck his face
in. "Good grief!” he snapped.
"Haven't you done anything yet?”

DOUBLE STAR

19

I stared coldly. "I assumed that
you wanted my best creative work
— which cannot be hurried. Would
you expect a Cordon Bleu to com-
pound a new sauce on the back of
a galloping horse?”

"Horses be damned!” He glanced
at his watch finger. "You have six
more minutes. If you can’t do any-
thing in that length of time, we’ll
just have to take our chances.”

Well ! Of course I prefer to have
plenty of time — but I had under-
studied my father in his quick-
change creation "The Assassination
of Huey Long,” fifteen parts in
seven minutes . . . and had once
played it in nine seconds less time
than he did. "Stay where you are!”
I snapped back at him. "I'll be with
you at once.” I then put on "Benny
Gray,” the colorless handy man who
does the murders in "The House
With No Doors” . . . two quick
strokes to put dispirited lines into
my cheeks from nose to mouth cor-
ners, a mere suggestion of bags un-
der my eyes, and Factor’s No. 5 sal-
low over all, taking not more than
twenty seconds for everything — I
could have done it in my sleep;
"House” ran on boards for ninety-
two performances before they re-
corded it.

Then I faced Broadbent and he
gasped. "Good God! I don’t be-
lieve it.”

I stayed in "Benny Gray” and
did not smile acknowledgment.
What Broadbent could not realize
was that the grease paint really was
not necessary. It makes it easier, of

20

course, but I had used a touch of it
primarily because he expected it;
being one of the yokels he naturally
assumed that make-up consisted of
paint and powder.

He continued to stare at me.
"Look here,” he said in a hushed
voice, "could you do something like
that for me? In a hurry?"

I was about to say no, when I
realized that it presented an inter-
esting professoinal challenge. I had
been tempted to say that if my
father had started in on him at five
he might be ready now to sell cot-
ton candy at a punkin’ doin’s, but I
thought better of it. "You simply
want to be sure that you will not be
recognized?” I asked.

"Yes, yes! Can you paint me up,
or give me a false nose, or some-
thing?”

I shook my head. "No matter
what we did with make-up, it would
simply make you look like a child
dressed up for ’Trick or Treat.’ You
can’t act and you can never learn,
at your age. We won’t touch your
face.”

"Huh? But with this beak on
me — ”

"Attend me. Anything I could do
to that lordly nose would just call
attention to it, I assure you. Would
it suffice if an acquaintance looked
at you and said, 'Say, that big fellow
reminds me of Dak Broadbent. It’s
not Dak, of course, but looks a little
like him.’ Eh?”

"Huh? I suppose so. As long as
he was sure it wasn’t me. I’m sup-
posed to be on . . . well, I’m not

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

supposed to be on Earth just now.”
"He'll be quite sure it is not you,
because we’ll change your walk.
That’s the most distinctive thing
about you. If your walk is wrong,
it cannot possibly be you ... so it
must be some other big-boned,
broad-shouldered man who looks a
bit like you.”

"O. K., show me how to walk.”
"No, you could never learn it.
I’ll force you to walk the way I want
you to.”

"How?”

"Well put a handful of pebbles
or the equivalent in the toes of your
boots. That will force you back on
your heels and make you stand up
straight. It will be impossible for
you to sneak along in that cat-footed
spaceman's crouch. Mm-m-m . . . I’ll
slap some tape across your shoulder
blades to remind you to keep your
shoulders back, too. That will do it.”
"You think they won’t recognize
me just because I’ll walk differ-
ently?”

"Certain: An acquaintance won’t
know why he is sure it is not you,
but the very fact that the convic-
tion is subconscious and unanalyzed
will put it beyond reach of doubt.
Oh, I’ll do a little something to
your face, just to make you feel
easier — but it isn’t necessary.”

We went back into the living
room of the suite. I was still being
“Benny Gray” of course; once I put
on a role it takes a conscious effort
of will to go back to being myself.
Dubois was busy at the phone; he

looked up, saw me, and his jaw
dropped. He hurried out of the hush
locus and demanded, "Who’s be?
And where’s that actor fellow?”
After his first glance at me, he had
looked away and not bothered to
look back — "Benny Gray” is such
a tired, negligible little guy that
there is no point in looking at him.

"What actor fellow?” I answered
in Benny’s flat, colorless tones. It
brought Dubois’ eyes back to me.
He looked at me, started to look
away, his eyes snapped back, then
he looked at my clothes. Broadbent
guffawed and clapped him on the
shoulder.

"And you said he couldn’t act!”
He added sharply, "Did you get
them all, Jock?”

"Yes.” Dubois looked back at
me, looked perplexed, and looked
away.

"O. K. We’ve got to be out of
here in four minutes. Let’s see how
fast you can get me fixed up, Lor-
enzo.”

Dak had one boot off, his blouse
off, and his chemise pulled up so
that I could tape his shoulders when
the light over the door came on
and the buzzer sounded. He froze.
"Jock? We expecting anybody?”

"Probably Langston. He said he
was going to try to get over here
before we left.” Dubois started for
the door.

"It might not be him. It might
be — •” I did not get to hear Broad-
bent say who he thought it might
be as Dubois dilated the door.
Framed in the doorway, looking like

DOUBLE STAK

21

a nightmare toadstool, was a Mar-
tian.

For an agony-stretched second I
could see nothing but the Martian.
I did not see the human standing
behind . him, nor did I notice the
life wand the Martian cradled in
his pseudolimb.

Then the Martian flowed inside,
the man with him stepped in be-
hind him, and the door relaxed.
The Martian squeaked, "Good aft-
ernoon, gentlemen. Going some-
where?”

I was frozen, dazed, by acute
xenophobia. Dak was handicapped
by disarranged clothing. But little
Jock Dubois acted with a simple
heroism that made him my beloved
brother even as he died — he flung
himself at that life wand. Right at
it — he made no attempt to evade it.

He must have been dead, a hole
burned through his belly you could
poke a fist through, before he hit
the floor. But he hung on and the
pseudolimb stretched like taffy —
then snapped, broken off a few
inches from the monster’s neck, and
poor Jock still had the life wand
cradled in his dead arms.

The human who had followed
that stinking, reeking thing into the
room had to step to one side before
he could get in a shot — and he made
a mistake. He should have shot Dak
first, then me. Instead he wasted his
first one on Jock and he never got
a second one, as Dak shot him
neatly in the face. I had not even
known Dak was armed.

Deprived of his weapon, the Mar-

tian did not attempt to escape. Dak
bounced to his feet, slid up to him
and said, "Ah, Rrringriil. I see
you.”

"I see you, Captain Dak Broad-
bent,” the Martian squeaked, then
added, "you will tell my nest?”

"I will tell your nest, Rrring-
riil.”

"I thank you, Captain Dak
Broadbent.”

Dak reached out a long, bony
finger and poked it into the eye
nearest him, shoving it on home un-
til his knuckles were jammed against
the brain case. He pulled it out and
his finger was slimed with a green
ichor. The creature’s pseudolimbs
crawled back into its trunk in reflex
spasm but the dead thing continued
to stand firm on its base. Dak hur-
ried into the bath; I heard him
washing his hands. I stayed where
I was, almost as frozen by shock as
the late Rrringriil.

Dak came out, wiping his hands
on his shirt, and said, "We’ll have
to clean this up. There isn’t much
time.” He could have been speaking
of a spilled drink.

I tried to make clear in one jum-
bled sentence that I wanted no part
of it, that we ought to call the cops,
that I wanted to get away from there
before the cops came, that he knew
what he could do with his crazy
impersonation job, and that I
planned to sprout wings and fly out
the window. Dak brushed it all
aside. "Don’t jitter, Lorenzo. We’re
on minus minutes now. Help me

22

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

get the bodies into the bathroom.”
"Huh? Good God, man! Let’s
just lock up and run for it. Maybe
they will never connect us with it.”
"Probably they wouldn’t,” he
agreed, "since neither one of us is
supposed to be here. But they would
be able to see that Rrringriil had
killed Jock — and we can’t have that.
Not now we can’t.”

"Huh?”

"W6 can’t afford a news story
about a Martian killing a human.
So shut up and help me."

I shut up and helped him. It
steadied me to recall that "Benny
Gray” had been the worst of sadistic
psychopaths, who had enjoyed dis-
membering his victims. I let "Benny
Gray” drag the two human bodies
into the bath while Dak took the
life wand and sliced Rrringriil into
pieces small enough to handle. He
wa.s careful to make the first cut be-
low the brain case so the job was
not messy, but I could not help him
with it — it seemed to me that a dead
Martian stunk even worse than a
live one.

The oubliette was concealed in a
panel in the bath just beyond the
bidet; if it had not been marked
with the usual radiation trefoil it
would have been hard to find. After
we had shoved the chunks of Rrrine-

o

riil down it — I managed to get my
spunk up enough to help- — Dak
tackled the messier problem of
butchering and draining the human
corpses, using the wand and, of
course, working in the bathtub.

It is amazing how much blood a

man holds. We kept the water run-
ning the whole time; nevertheless
it was bad. But when Dak had to
tackle the remains of poor little
Jock, he just wasn’t up to it. His
eyes flooded with tears, blinding
him, so I elbowed him aside before
he sliced off his own fingers, and
let "Benny Gray” take over.

When I had finished and there
was nothing left to show that there
had ever been two other men and
a monster in the suite, I sluiced out
the tub carefully and stood up. Dak
was in the doorway, looking as calm
as ever. "I’ve made sure the floor is
tidy,” he announced. "I suppose a
criminologist with proper equipment
could reconstruct it . . . but we are
counting on no one ever suspecting.
So let’s get out of here. We’ve got
to gain almost twelve minutes some-
how. Come on!”

I was beyond asking where or
why. "All right. Let’s fix your
boots.”

He shook his head. "It would
slow me up. Right now speed is
more essential than not being rec-
ognized.”

"I am in your hands.” I followed
him to the door; he stopped and
said, "There may be others around.
If so, shoot first — there’s nothing
else you can do.” He had the life
wand in his hand, with his cloak
drawn over it.

"Martians?”

"Or men. Or both.”

"Dak, was Rrringriil one of
those four at the Manana Bar?”
"Certainly. Why do you think I

23

DOUBLE STAR

went around Robinson’s barn to get
you out of there and over here?
They either tailed you, as we did,
or they tailed me. Didn’t you recog-
nize him?”

"Heavens, no! Those monsters
all look alike to me.”

“And they say ive all look alike.
The four were Rrringriil, his con-
jugate-brother Rrringlath, and two
others from his nest, of divergent
lines. But shut up. If you see a
Martian, shoot. You have the other
gun?”

"Uh, yes. Look, Dak, I don’t
know what this is all about. But as
long as those beasts are against you,
I’m with you. I despise Martians.”
He looked shocked. "You don’t
know what you are saying. We’re
not fighting Martians; those four
are renegades.”

"Huh?”

"There are lots of good Martians
. . . almost all of them. Shucks,
even Rrringriil wasn’t a bad sort in
most ways — I’ve had many a fine
chess game with him.”

"What? In that case, I’m — ”
"Stow it. You’re in too deep to
back out. Now quick, march,
straight to the bounce tube. I’ll
cover our rear.”

I shut up. I was in much too deep
— that was unarguable.

We hit the sub-basement and
went at once to the express tubes. A
two-passenger capsule was just
emptying; Dak shoved me in so
quickly that I did not see him set
the control combination. But I was

24

hardly surprised when the pressure
let up from my chest and I saw the
sign blinking JEFFERSON SKY-
PORT— All Out.

Nor did I care what station it
was, as long as it was as far as pos-
sible from Hotel Eisenhower. The
few minutes we had been crammed
in the vactube had been long enough
for me to devise a plan — sketchy,
tentative, and subject to change with-
out notice as the fine print always
says ... but a plan. It could be
stated in two words: Get Lost!

Only that morning I would have
found the plan very difficult to exe-
cute; in our culture a man with no
money at all is baby helpless. But
with a hundred slugs in my pocket
I could go far and fast. I felt no
obligation to Dak Broadbent. For
reasons of his own — not my reas-
ons ! — he had almost got me killed,
then had crowded me into covering
up a crime, made me a fugitive from
justice. But we had evaded the po-
lice, temporarily at least, and now,
simply by shaking off Broadbent, I
could forget the whole thing, shelve
it as a bad dream. It seemed most
unlikely that I could be connected
with the affair, even if it were dis-
covered — fortunately a gentleman
always wears gloves, and I had had
mine off only to put on make-up
and later during that ghastly house-
cleaning.

Aside from the warm burst of
adolescent heroics I had felt when
I thought Dak was fighting Mar-
tians I had no interest in his schemes
. . . and even that sympathy had

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

shut off when I found that he liked
Martians in general. His imperson-
ation job I would not now touch
with the proverbial eleven-foot pole.
To hell with Broadbent! All I want-
ed out of life was money enough
to keep body and soul together and
a chance to practice my art; cops-
and-robbers nonsense did not inter-
est me . . . poor theater at best.

Jefferson Port seemed handmade
to carry out my scheme. Crowded
and confused, with express tubes
spiderwebbing from it, in it, if Dak
took his eyes off me for half a sec-
ond I would be half way to Omaha.
I would lie low a few weeks, then
get in touch with my agent and find
out if any inquiries had been made
about me.

Dak saw to it that we climbed
out of the capsule together, else I
would have slammed it shut and
gone elsewhere at once. I pretended
not to notice and stuck close as a
puppy to him as we went up the
belt to the main hall just under the
surface, coming out between the
Pan-Am desk and American Sky-
lines. Dak headed straight across the
waiting room floor toward Diana,
Ltd., and I surmised that he was
going to buy tickets for the Moon
shuttle — how he planned to get me
aboard without passport or vaccina-
tion certificate I could not guess but
I knew that he was resourceful. I
decided that I would fade into the
furniture while he had his wallet
out; when a man counts money
there are at least a few seconds when

his eyes and attention are fully oc-
cupied.

But we went right on past the
Diana desk and through an archway
marked Private Berths. The passage-
way beyond was not crowded and
the walls were blank; I realized with
dismay that I had let slip my best
chance, back there in the busy main
hall. I held back. "Dak? Are we
making a jump?”

"Of course.”

“Dak, you’re crazy. I’ve got no
papers, I don’t even have a tourist
card for the Moon.”

"You won’t need them.”

"Huh? They’ll stop me at 'Emi-
gration.’ Then a big, beefy cop will
start asking questions.”

A hand about the size of a cat
closed on my upper arm. "Let’s not
waste time. Why should you go
through 'Emigration,’ when officially
you aren’t leaving? And why should
I, when officially I never arrived?
Quick march, old son.”

I am well muscled and not small,
but I felt as if a traffic robot were
pulling me out of a danger zone. I
saw a sign reading MEN and I made
a desperate attempt to break it up.
"Dak, half a minute, please. Got to
see a man about the plumbing.”

He grinned at me. "Oh, yes? You
went just before we left the hotel.”
He did not slow up, nor let go of
me.

"Kidney trouble —

"Lorenzo, old son, I smell a case
of cold feet. Tell you what I’ll do.
See that cop up ahead?” At the end

DOUBLE STAR

25

of the corridor, in the private berths
station, a defender of the peace was
resting his big feet by leaning over
a counter. "I find I have a sudden
attack of conscience. I feel a need
to confess . . . about how you killed
a visiting Martian and two local citi-
zens . . . about how you held a gun
on me and forced me to help you
dispose of the bodies. About — ”

"You’re crazy!”

"Almost out of my mind with
anguish and remorse, shipmate.”

"But . . . you’ve got nothing on
me.”

"So? I think my story will sound
more convincing than yours. I know
what it is all about and you don't.
I know all about you and you know
nothing about me. For example — ”
He mentioned a couple of details in
my past that I would have sworn
were buried and forgotten. All right,
so I did have a couple of routines
useful for stag shows that are not
for the family trade — a man has to
eat. But that matter about Bebe;
that was hardly fair, for I certainly
had not known that she was under
age. As for that hotel bill, while it
is true that bilking an "innkeeper”
in Miami Beach carries much the
same punishment as armed robbery
elsewhere, it is a very provincial
attitude — I would have paid if I had
had the money. As for that unfor-
tunate incident in Seattle — well,
what I am trying to say is that Dak
did know an amazing amount about
my background but he had the
wrong slant on most of it. Still —

"So,” he continued, "let's walk

26

right up to yon gendarme and make
a clean breast of it. I’ll lay you seven
to two as to which one of us is out
on bail first.”

So we marched up to the cop and
on past him. He was talking to a
female clerk back of the railing and
neither one of them looked up. Dak
took out two tickets reading: "GATE
PASS — MAINTENANCE PER-
MIT — Berth K127,” and stuck them
into the monitor. The machine
scanned them, a transparency direct-
ed us to take an upper-level car,
code King One Two Seven; the gate
let us through and locked behind
us as a recorded voice said: "Watch
your step, please, and heed radia-
tion warnings. The Terminal Com-
pany is not responsible for accidents
beyond the gate.”

Dak punched an entirely different
code in the little car; it wheeled
around, picked a track and we took
off out under the field. It did not
matter to me, I was beyond caring.

When we stepped out of the little
car it went back where it came from.
In front of me was a ladder dis-
appearing into the steel ceiling
above. Dak nudged me. "Up you
go.” There was a scuttle hole at the
top and on it a sign: RADIATION
HAZARD — Optimax 13 Seconds.
The figures had been chalked in. I
stopped. I have no special interest
in offspring but I am no fool. Dak
grinned and said, "Got your lead
britches on? Open it, go through
at once, and straight up the ladder
into the ship. If you don’t stop to

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

scratch, you’ll make it with at least
three seconds to spare.”

I believe I made it with five sec-
onds to spare. I was out in the sun-
light for about ten feet, then I was
inside a long tube in the ship. I used
about every third rung.

The rocketship was apparently
small. At least the control room was
quite cramped; I never got a look
at the outside. The only other space-
ship I had ever been in was the
Moon shuttle Evangeline and her
sister ship the Gabriel, that being
the year in which I had incautiously
accepted a lunar engagement on a
co-op basis — our impressario had
had a notion that a juggling, tight-
rope, and acrobatic routine would
go well in the one-sixth gee of the

Moon, which was correct as far as
it went, but he had not allowed
rehearsal time for us to get used to
low gravity. I had to take advantage
of the "Distressed Travelers Act” to
get back and I had lost my ward-
robe.

There were two men in* the con-
trol room; one was lying in one of
three acceleration couches fiddling
with dials, the other was making
obscure motions with a screwdriver.
The one in the couch glanced at me,
said nothing. The other one turned,
looked worried, then said past me,
"What happened to Jock?“

Dak almost levitated out ot the
hatch behind me. "No time!” he
snapped. "Have you compensated
for his mass?”

"Yes.”

DOUBLE STAR

27

"Red, is she taped? Tower?”

The man in the couch answered
lazily, "I’ve been recomputing every
two minutes. You’re clear with the
tower. Minus forty, uh, seven sec-
onds.”

"Out of that bunk! Scram! I’m
going to catch that tick!”

Red moved lazily out of the couch
as Dak got in. The other man shoved
me into the co-pilot’s couch and
strapped a safety belt across my
chest. He turned and dropped down
the escape tube. Red followed him,
then stopped with his head and
shoulders out. "Tickets, please!” he
said cheerfully.

"Blast it!” Dak loosened a
safety belt, reached for a pocket, got
out the two field passes we had
used to sneak aboard and shoved
them at him.

"Thanks,” Red answered. "See
you in church. Hot jets and so
forth.” He disappeared with leisure-
ly swiftness; I heard the air lock
close and my eardrums popped. Dak
did not answer his farewell; his
eyes were busy on the computer
dials and he made some minor ad-
justment.

"Twenty-one seconds,” he said to
me. "There’ll be no rundown. Be
sure your arms are inside and that
you are relaxed. The first step is
going to be a honey.”

I did as I was told, then waited
for hours in that curtain-going-up
tension. Finally I said, "Dak?”

"Shut up!”

"Just one thing: where are we
going?”

28

"Mars.” I saw his thumb jab at
a red button and I blacked out.

II

What is so funny about a man
being drop sick? Those dolts with
cast-iron stomachs always laugh —
I’ll bet they would laugh if grand-
ma broke both legs.

I was space sick, of course, as
soon as the rocketship quit blasting
and went into free fall. I came out
of it fairly quickly, as my stomach
was practically empty — I’d eaten
nothing since breakfast — and was
simply wanly miserable the remain-
ing eternity of that awful trip. It
took us an hour and forty-three min-
utes to make rendezvous, which is
roughly equal to a thousand years
in purgatory to a groundhog like
myself.

I’ll say this for Dak, though: he
did not laugh. Dak was a profes-
sional and he treated my normal
reaction with the impersonal good
manners of a flight nurse — not like
those flat-headed, loud-voiced jack-
asses you’ll find on the passenger
list of a Moon shuttle. If I had my
way, those healthy self-panickers
would be spaced in mid-orbit and
allowed to laugh themselves to death
in vacuum.

Despite the turmoil in my mind
and the thousand questions I want-
ed to ask we had almost made ren-
dezvous with a torchship, which was
in parking orbit around Earth, be-
fore I could stir up interest in any-
thing. I suspect that if one were to

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

inform a victim of spacesickness
that he was to be shot at sunrise his
only answer would be, "Yes? Would
you hand me that sack, please?”

But I finally recovered to the point
where, instead of wanting very badly
to die, the scale had tipped so that
I had a flickering, half-hearted in-
terest in continuing to live. Dak was
busy most of the time at the ship’s
communicator, apparently talking on
a very tight beam for his hands con-
stantly nursed the directional control
like a gunner laying a gun under
difficulties. I could not hear what
he said, nor even read his lips, as
he had his face pushed into the
rumble box. I assumed that he was
talking to the long-jump ship we
were to meet.

But when he pushed the com-
municator aside and lit a cigarette
I repressed the stomach retch that
the mere sight of tobacco smoke had
inspired and said, "Dak, isn’t it
about time you told me the score?”

"Plenty of time for that on our
way to Mars.”

"Huh? I don’t want to go to
Mars,” I protested feebly. "I would
never have considered your crazy
offer if I had known it was on
Mars.”

"Suit yourself. You don’t have to

g°-”

"Eh?”

"The air lock is right behind you.
Get out and walk. Mind you close
the door.”

I did not answer the ridiculous
suggestion. He went on, "But if you
can’t breathe space the easiest thing

to do is to go to Mars ... and I’ll
see that you get back. The Can Do —
that’s this bucket — is about to ren-
dezvous with the Go For Broke,
which is a high-gee torchship. About
seventeen seconds and a gnat’s wink
after we make contact the Go For
Broke will torch for Mars . . . for
we’ve got to be there by Wednes-
day.”

I answered with the petulant stub-
bornness of a sick man. I’m not go-
ing to Mars. I’m going to stay right
in this ship. Somebody has to take
it back and land it on Earth. You
can’t fool me.”

"True,” Broadbent agreed. "But
you won’t be in it. The three blokes
who are supposed to be in this ship
— according to the records back at
Jefferson Field — are in the Go For
Broke right now. This is a three-
man ship as you’ve noticed. I’m
afraid you will find them stuffy
about giving up a place to you. And
besides, how would you get back
through Immigration?”

"I don’t care! I’d be back on
ground.”

"And in jail, charged with every-
thing from illegal entry to mopery
and dopery in the spaceways. At the
very least they would be sure that
you were smuggling and they would
take you to some quiet back room
and run a needle in past your eye-
ball and find out just what you.
were up to. They would know what
questions to ask and you wouldn’t
be able to keep from answering. But
you wouldn’t be able to implicate
me, for good old Dak Broadbent

DOUBLE STAR

29

hasn’t been back to Earth in quite
a spell and has unimpeachable wit-
nesses to prove it.”

I thought about it sickly, both
from fear and the continuing effects
of spacesickness. "So you would tip
off the police? You dirty, slimy — ”
I broke off for lack of an adequate-
ly insulting noun.

"Oh, no! Look, old son, I might
twist your arm a bit and let you
think I would cry copper — but I
never would. But Rrringriil's con-
jugate-brother Rrringlath certainly
knows that old ’Grid went in that
door and failed to come out. He
will tip off the nosies. Conjugate-
brother is a relationship so close that
we will never understand it, since
we don’t reproduce by fission.”

I didn’t care whether Martians
reproduced like rabbits or the stork
brought them in a little black bag.
The way he told it I could never
go back to Earth, and I said so. He
shook his head. "Not at all. Leave
it to me and we will slide you J back
in as neatly as we slid you out.
Eventually you will walk off that
field or some other field with a gate
pass which shows that you are a
mechanic who has been making some
last-minute adjustment . . . and
you’ll have greasy coveralls and a
tool kit to back it up. Surely an
actor of your skill can play the part
of a mechanic for a few minutes?”

"Eh? Why, certainly! But — ”

"There you are! You stick with
ol’ Doc Dak; he’ll take care of you.
W r e shuffled eight guild brothers in

SO

this current caper to get me on Earth
and both of us off; we can do it
again. But you would not stand a
chance without voyageurs to help
you.” He grinned. "Every voyageur
is a free-trader at heart. The art of
smuggling being what it is, we are
all of us always ready to help out
one another in a little innocent de-
ception of the port guards. But a
person outside the lodge does not
ordinarily get such co-operation.”

I tried to steady my stomach and
think about it. "Dak, is this a smug-
gling deal? Because — ”

"Oh, no! Except that we are
smuggling you.”

”1 was going to say that I don’t
regard smuggling as a crime.”

"Who does? Except those who
make money off the rest of us by
limiting trade. But this is a straight
impersonation job, Lorenzo, and you
are the man for it. It wasn’t an
accident that I ran across you in
that bar; there had been a tail on
you for two days. As soon as I hit
dirt I went where you were.” He
frowned. "I wish I could be sure
our honorable antagonists had been
following me, and not you.”
"Why?”

"If they were following me they
were trying to find out what I was
after — which is O. K., as the lines
were already drawn; we knew that
we were mutual enemies. But if they
were following you, then they kneiv
what I was after ... an actor who
could play the role.”

"But how could they know that?
Unless you told them?”

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

"Lorenzo, this thing is big, much
bigger than you imagine. I don’t see
it all myself . . . and the less you
know about it until you must, the
better off you are. But I can tell you
this: a set of personal characteris-
tics was fed into the big computer
at the System Census Bureau at the
Hague and the machine compared
them -with the personal characteris-
tics of every male professional actor
alive. It was done as discreetly as
possible but somebody might have
guessed . . . and talked. The specifi-
cations amounted to identification
both of the principal and the actor
who could double for him, since the
job had to be perfect.”

"Oh. And the machine told you
that I was the man for it?”

"Yes. You . . . and one other.”

This was another good place for
me to keep my mouth shut. But I
could not have done so if my life
had depended on it . . . which in
a way it did. I just had to know
who the other actor was who was
considered competent to play a role
which called for my unique talents.
"This other one? Who is he?”

Dak looked me over; I could see
him hesitate. "Mm-m-m . . . fellow
by the name of Orson Trowbridge.
Know him?”

" That ham!” For a moment I was
so furious that I forgot my nausea.

"So? I hear that he is a very good
actor.”

I simply could not help being in-
dignant at the idea that anyone
should even think about that oaf

Trowbridge for a role for which I
was being considered. "That arm-
waver! That word-mouther!” I
stopped, realizing that it was more
dignified to ignore such colleagues
— if the word fits. But that popin-
jay was so conceited that — well, if
the role called for him to kiss a
lady’s hand, Trowbridge would fake
it by kissing his own thumb instead.
A narcissist, a poser, a double fake
— how could such a man live a
role?

Yet such is the injustice of for-
tune that his sawings and rantings
had paid him well while real artists
went hungry. "Dak, I simply cannot
see why you considered him for it.”

"Well, we didn’t want him; he is
tied up with some long-term con-
tract that would make his absence
conspicuous and awkward. It was
lucky for us that you were . . . uh,
'at liberty.’ As soon as you agreed
to the job I had Jock send word to
call off the team that was trying to
arrange a deal with Trowbridge.”

"I should think so!”

"But — see here, Lorenzo, I’m go-
ing to lay it on the line. While you
were busy whooping your cookies
after brennschluss I called the Go
For Broke and told them to pass
the word down to get busy on Trow-
bridge again.”

"What?”

"You asked for it, shipmate. See
here, a man in my racket contracts
to herd a heap to Ganymede, that
means he will pilot that pot to Gany-
mede or die trying. He doesn’t get
faint-hearted and try to welch while

DOUBLE STAR

31

the ship is being loaded. You told
me you would take this job — no
'ifs’ nor 'ands’ nor 'buts’ — you took
the job. A few minutes later there
is a fracas; you lose your nerve.
Later you try to run out on me at
the field. Only ten minutes ago you
were screaming to be taken back
dirtside. Maybe you are a better
actor than Trowbridge. I wouldn’t
know. But I know we need a man
who can be depended on not to lose
his nerve when the time comes. I
understand that Trowbridge is that
sort of bloke. So if we can get him,
we’ll use him instead, pay you off
and tell you nothing and ship you
back. Understand?”

Too well I understood. Dak did
not use the word — I doubt if he
would have understood it — but he
was telling me that I was not a
trouper. The bitter part about it was
that he was justified. I could not be
angry; I could only be ashamed. I
had been an idiot to accept the con-
tract without knowing more about
it — but I had agreed to play the role,
without conditions nor escape
clauses. Mow I was trying to back
out, like a rank amateur with stage
fright.

"The show must go on” is the
oldest tenet of show business. Per-
haps it has no philosophical verity,
but the things men live by are rare-
ly subject to logical proof. My father
had believed it — I had seen him play
two acts with a burst appendix and
then take his bows before he had
let them rush him to a hospital. I
could see his face now, looking at

32

me with the contempt of a trouper
for a so-called actor who would let
an audience down.

"Dak,” I said humbly, "I am
sorry. I was wrong.”

He looked at me sharply. "You’ll
do the job?”

"Yes.” I meant it sincerely. Then
I suddenly remembered a factor
which could make the part as im-
possible for me as the role of Snow
White in "The Seven Dwarfs.”
"That is . . . well, I want to. But — ”
"But what?” he said scornfully.
"More of your damned tempera-
ment?”

"No, no! But you said we were
going to Mars. Dak, am I going to
be expected to do this impersonation
with Martians around me?”

"Eh? Of course. How else on
Mars?”

"Uh . . . but, Dak, I can’t stand
Martians ! They give me the heebie-
jeebies. I wouldn’t want to ... I
would try not to . . . but I might
fall rirrht out of the characteriza-
tion.”

"Oh. If that is all that is worry-
ing you, forget it.”

"Huh? But I can’t forget it. I
can’t help it. I — ”

"I said, 'Forget it.’ Old son, we
knew you were a peasant in such
matters — we know all about you.
Lorenzo, your fear of Martians is as
childish and irrational as a fear of
spiders or snakes. But we had an-
ticipated it and it will be taken care
of. So forget it.”

"Well ... all right.” I was not
much reassured, but he had flicked

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

me where it hurt. "Peasant” — why,
" peasants ” were the audience! So I
shut up.

Dak pulled the communicator to
him, did not bother to silence his
message with the rumble box:
"Dandelion to Tumbleweed . . .
cancel Plan Inkblot. We will com-
plete Mardi Gras.”

"Dak?” I said, as he signed off.

"Later,” he answered. "I’m about
to match orbits. The contact may be
a little rough, as I am not going to
waste time worrying about chuck
holes. So pipe down and hang on.”

And it was rough. By the time
we were in the torchship I was glad
to be comfortably back in free fall
again; surge nausea is even worse
than everyday drop sickness. But we
did not stay in free fall more than
five minutes; the three men who
were to go back in the Can Do were
crowding into the transfer lock even
as Dak and I floated into the torch-
ship. The next few moments were
extremely confused. I suppose I am
a groundhog at heart for I disorient
very easily when I can’t tell the floor
from the ceiling. Someone called
out, "Where is he?” Dak replied,
"Here!” The same voice replied,
"Him?” as if he could not believe
his eyes.

"Yes, yes!” Dak answered. "He’s
got make-up on. Never mind, it’s
all right. Help me get him into the
cider press.”

A hand grabbed my arm, towed
me along a narrow passage and into
a compartment. Against one bulk-

head and flat to it were two bunks,
or "cider presses,” the bathtub-
shaped, hydraulic, pressure-distribu-
tion tanks used for high acceleration
in torchships. I had never seen one
before but we had used quite con-
vincing mock-ups in the space opus
"The Earth Raiders.”

There was a stenciled sign on
the bulkhead behind the bunks:
UNARMING ! ! ! Do Not Take
More Than Three Gravities With-
out a Gee Suit. By Order of — I ro-
tated slowly out of range of vision
before I could finish reading it and
someone shoved me into one cider
press. Dak and the other man were
hurriedly strapping me against it
when a horn somewhere nearby
broke into a horrid hooting. It con-
tinued for several seconds, then a
voice replaced it: "Red warning!
Two gravities ! Three minutes ! Red
Warning! Two gravities! Three
minutes!” Then the hooting started
again.

Through the racket I heard Dak
ask urgently, "Is the projector all
set? The tapes ready?”

"Sure, sure!”

"Got the hypo?” Dak squirmed
around in the air and said to me,
"Look, shipmate, we’re going to
give you a shot. It’s all right. Part
of it is Nullgrav, the rest is a stimu-
lant — for you are going to have to
stay awake and study your lines. It
will make your eyeballs feel hot at
first and it may make you itch, but
it won’t hurt you.”

"Wait, Dak, I — ”

"No time! I’ve got to smoke this

33

DOUBLE STAR

scrap heap!” He twisted and was
out the door before I could protest.
The second man pushed up my left
sleeve, held an injection gun against
the skin, and I had received the dose
before I knew it. Then he was gone.
The hooting gave way to: "Red
warning! Two gravities! Two min-
utes!”

I tried to look around but the
drug made me even more confused.
My eyeballs did feel hot and my
teeth as well and I began to feel
an almost intolerable itching along
my spine . . . but the safety straps
kept me from reaching the tortured
area — and perhaps kept me from
breaking an arm at acceleration. The
hooting stopped again and this time
Dak’s self-confident baritone boomed
out: "Last red warning! Two gravi-
ties! One minute! Knock off those
pinochle games and spread your fat
carcasses — we’re goin’ to smoke!”
The hooting was replaced this time
by a recording of Arkezian’s "Ad
Astra,” opus 61 in C major. It was
the controversial London Symphony
version with the fourteen-cycle
"scare” notes buried in the timpani.
Battered, bewildered, and doped as
I was, they seemed to have no effect
on me — you can’t wet a river.

A mermaid came in the door. No
scaly tail, surely, but a mermaid is
what she looked like. When my eyes
refocused I saw that it was a very
likely-looking and adequately mam-
malian young woman in singlet and
shorts, swimming along head first
in a way that made clear that free
fall was no novelty to her. She

34

glanced at me without smiling,
placed herself against the other
cider press and took hold of the
hand grips — she did not bother with
safety belts. The music hit the roll-
ing finale and I felt myself grow
very heavy.

Two gravities is not bad, not
when you are floating in a liquid
bed. The skin over the top of the
cider press pushed up around me,
supporting me inch by inch; I simp-
ly felt heavy and found it hard to
breathe. You hear these stories about
pilots torching at ten gravities and
ruining themselves and I have no
doubt that they are true — but
two gravities, taken in the cider
press, simply makes one feel lan-
guid, unable to move.

It was some time before I realized
that the horn in the ceiling was
speaking to me. "Lorenzo! How are
you doing, shipmate?”

"All right.” The effort made me
gasp. "How long do we have to put
up with this?”

"About two days.”

I must have moaned, for Dak
laughed at me. "Quit bellyaching,
chum! My first trip to Mars took
thirty-seven weeks, every minute of
it free fall in an elliptical orbit.
You’re taking the luxury route, at
a mere double gee for a couple of
days . . . with a one-gee rest at
turnover, I might add. We ought
to charge you for it.”

I started to tell him what I
thought of his humor in scathing
green-room idiom, then recalled

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

that there was a lady present. My
father had taught me that a woman
will forgive any action, up to and
including assault with violence, but
is easily insulted by language; the
lovelier half of our race is symbol-
oriented — very strange, ih view of
their extreme practicality. In any
case, I have never let a taboo word
pass my lips when it might offend
the ears of a lady since the time I
last received the back of my father’s
hard hand full on my mouth . . .
father could have given Professor

Pavlov pointers in reflex condition-
ing.

But Dak was speaking again.

"Penny! You there, honey chile”?”

"Yes, captain,” the young woman
with me answered.

"O. K., start him on his home-
work. I'll be down when I have this
firetrap settled in its groove.”

"Very well, captain.” She turned
her head toward me and said in a
soft, husky, contralto voice, "Dr.
Capek wants you simply to relax

and look at movies for several hours.

I am here to answer questions as
necessary.”

I sighed. "Thank goodness some-
one is at last going to answer ques-
tions !”

She did not answer, but raised
an arm with some difficulty and
passed it over a switch. The lights
in the compartment died out and
a sound-and-stereo image built up
in front of my eyes. I recognized
the central figure — just as any of
the billions of citizens of the Em-
pire would have recognized him —

and I realized at last how thoroughly
and mercilessly Dak Broadbent had
tricked me.

It was Bonforte.

The Bonforte, I mean — the Right
Honorable John Joseph Bonforte,
former Supreme Minister, leader of
the loyal opposition, and head of
the Expansionist coalition . . . the
most loved — and the most hated ! —
man in the entire Solar System.

My astonished mind made a
standing broad-jump and arrived at
what seemed a logical certainty.
Bonforte had lived through at least
three assassination attempts ... or
so the news reports would have us
believe. At least two of his escapes
had seemed almost miraculous. Sup-
pose they were not miraculous? Sup-
pose they had all been successful
— but dear old Uncle Joe Bonforte
had always been somewhere else at
the time?

You could use up a lot of actors
that way.

Ill

I had never meddled in politics.
My father had warned against it.
"Stay out of it, Larry,” he had told
me solemnly. "The publicity you
get that way is bad publicity. The
peasants don’t like it.” I had never
voted . . . not even after the amend-
ment of ’98 made it easy for the
floating population — which includes,
of course, most members of the pro-
fession — to exercise franchise.

However, insofar as I had politi-
cal leanings of any sort, they cer-

DOUBLE STAR

35

tainly did not lean toward Bonforte.
I considered him a dangerous man
and very possibly a traitor to the
human race. The idea of standing
up and getting killed in his place
was — how shall I put it? — distaste-
ful to me.

But . . . what a role!

I had once played the lead in
"L’Aiglon” and I had played Caesar
in the only two plays about him
worthy of the name. But to play
such a role in life . . . well, it is
enough to make one understand how
a man could go to the guillotine in
another man’s place . . . just for
the chance to play, even for a few
moments, the ultimately exacting
role, in order to create the supreme,
the perfect, work of art.

I wondered who my colleagues
had been who had been unable to
resist that temptation on those
earlier occasions? They had been
artists, that was certain, though their

very anonymity was the only tribute
to the success of their characteriza-
tions. I tried to remember just when
the earlier attempts on Bonforte’s
life had taken place and which col-
leagues, who might have been cap-
able of the role, had died or dropped
out of sight at those times. But it
was useless. Not only was I not too
sure of the details of current politi-
cal history but also actors simply
fade out of view with depressing fre-
quency; it is a chancy profession
even for the best of us.

I found that I had been studying
closely the characterization.

I realized I could play it. Hell,
I could play it with one foot in a
bucket and a smell of smoke back
stage. To begin with, there was no
problem of physique; Bonforte and
I could have swapped clothes with-
out a wrinkle. These childish con-
spirators who had shanghaied me
had vastly overrated the importance

36

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

of physical resemblance, since it
means nothing if not backed up by
art — and need not be at all close if
the actor is competent. But I admit
that it does help and their silly
game with the computer machine
had resulted — quite by accident ! —
in selecting a true artist, as well as
one who was in measurements and
bony structure the twin of the poli-
tician. His profde was much like
mine; even his hands were long, nar-
row, and aristocratic like mine —
and hands are harder than faces.

That limp, supposedly the result
of one of the attempts on his life —
nothing to it! After watching him
for a few minutes I knew that I
could get up from that bed — at one
gravity, that is — and walk in pre-
cisely the same way and never have
to think about it. The way he had
of scratching his collarbone and then
brushing his chin, the almost im-
perceptible tic which preceded each
of his sentences — such things were
no trouble; they soaked into my sub-
conscious like water into sand.

To be sure, he was fifteen or
twenty years older than I was, but
it is easier to play a role older than
oneself than one younger. In any
case, age to an actor is simply a mat-
ter of inner attitude; it has nothing
to do with the steady march of
catabolism.

I could have played him on
boards, or read a speech in his place,
within twenty minutes. But this part,
as I understood it, would be more
than such an interpretation; Dak had
hinted that I would have to convince

people who knew him well, perhaps
in intimate circumstances. This is
surpassingly more difficult. Does he
take sugar in his coffee? If so, how
much? Which hand does he use to
strike a cigarette and with what ges-
ture? I got the answer to that one
and planted it deep in my mind
even as I phrased the question; the
simulacrum in front of me struck
a cigarette in a fashion that con-
vinced me that he had used matches
and the old-fashioned sort of gasper
for years before he had gone along
with the march of so-called progress.

Worst of all, a man is not a single
complexity; he is a different com-
plexity to every person who knows
him . , . which means that, to be
successful, an impersonation must
change for each "audience” — for
each , acquaintance of the man being
impersonated. This is not merely
difficult; it is statistically impossible.
Such little things could trip one up.
What shared experiences does your
principal have with acquaintance
John Jones? With a hundred, or a
thousand, John Joneses? How could
an impersonator possibly know?

Acting per se, like all art, is a
process of abstracting, of retaining
only significant detail. But in im-
personation any detail can be sig-
nificant. In time, something as silly
as not crunching celery could let the
cat out of the bag.

Then I recalled with glum con-
viction that my performance prob-
ably need be convincing only long
enough for a marksman to draw a
bead on me.

DOUBLE ETAK

37

But I was still studying the man
I was to replace — what else could
I do? — when the door opened and I
heard Dak in his proper person
call out, "Anybody home?” The
lights came on, the three-dimensional
vision faded, and I felt as if I had
been wrenched from a dream. I
turned my head; the young woman
called Penny was struggling to lift
her head from the other hydraulic
bed and Dak was standing braced in
the doorway.

I looked at him and said wonder-
ingly, "How do you manage to stand
up?” Part of my mind, the profes-
sional part that works independent-
ly, was noting how he stood and
filing it in a new drawer marked:
"How a Man Stands Under Two
Gravities.”

He grinned at me. "Nothing to
it. I wear arch supports.”

"Hm-m-m!”

"You can stand up, if you want
to. Ordinarily we discourage passen-
gers from getting out of the boost
tanks when we are torching at any-
thing over one-and-a-half gees — too
much chance that some idiot will
fall over his own feet and break a
leg. But I once saw a really tough
weight-lifter . type climb out of the
press and walk at five gravities . . .
but he was never good for much
afterwards. But two gees is O. K. — -
about like carrying another man
piggyback.” He glanced at the young
lady. "Giving him the straight word.
Penny?”

"He hasn’t asked anything yet.”

"So? Lorenzo, I thought you were

the lad who wanted all the an-
swers?”

I shrugged. "I cannot now see
that it matters, since it is evident
that I will not live long enough to
appreciate them.”

"Eh? What soured your milk, old
son?”

"Captain Broadbent,” I said bit-
terly, "I am inhibited in expressing
myself by the presence of a lady;
therefore I cannot adequately dis-
cuss your ancestry, personal habits,
morals, and destination. Let it stand
that I knew what you had tricked
me into as soon as I became aware
of the identity of the man I am to
impersonate. I will content myself
with one question only: who is
about to attempt to assassinate Bon-
forte? Even a clay pigeon should
be entitled to know who is shooting
at him.”

For the first time, I saw Dak reg-
ister surprise. Then he laughed so
hard that the acceleration seemed
to be too much for him; he slid to
the deck and braced his back against
a bulkhead, still laughing.

"I don’t see anything funny about
it,” I said angrily.

He stopped and wiped his eyes.
"Lorrie old son, did you honestly
think that I had set you up as a sit-
ting duck?”

"It’s obvious.” I told him my de-
ductions about the earlier assassina-
tion attempts.

He had the sense not to laugh
again. ”1 see. You thought it was
a job about like food taster for a
Middle Ages king. Well, we’ll have

38

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

to try to straighten you out; I don’t
suppose it helps your acting to think
that you are about to be burned
down where you stand. Look, I’ve
been with the chief for six years.
During that time I know he has
never used a double . . . neverthe-
less I was present on two occasions
when attempts were made on his life
— one of those times I shot the
hatchet man. Penny, you’ve been
with the chief longer than that. Has
he ever used a double before?”

She looked at me coldly. "Never.
The very idea that the chief would
let anybody expose himself to dan-
ger in his place is . . . well, I
ought to slap your face; that’s what
I ought to do!”

"Take it easy, Penny,” Dak said
mildly. "You’ve both got jobs to do
and you are going to have to work
with him. Besides, his wrong guess
isn’t too silly, not from the outside.
By the way, Lorenzo, this is Penel-
ope Russell. She is the chief’s per-
sonal secretary, which makes her
your number-one coach.”

"I am honored to meet you,
mademoiselle.”

"I wish I could say the same!”

"Stow it, Penny. Lorenzo, I con-
cede that doubling for John Joseph
Bonforte isn’t as safe as riding in a
wheelchair — shucks, as we both
know, several attempts have been
made to close out his life insurance.
But that is not what we are afraid
of this time. Matter of fact, this
time, for political reasons you will
presently understand, the laddies we

are up against won’t dare to try to
kill the chief ... or to kill you
when you are doubling for the chief.
They are playing rough — as you
know ! — and they would kill me, or
even Penny, for the slightest advan-
tage. They would kill you right now,
if they could get at you. But when
you make this public appearance as
the chief you’ll be safe; the circum-
stances will be such that they can’t
afford to kill.”

He studied my face. "Well?”

I shook my head. "I don’t follow
you.”

"No, but you will. It is a compli-
cated matter, involving Martian ways
of looking at things. Take it for
granted; you’ll know all about it
before we get there.”

I still did not like it. Thus far
Dak had told me no outright lies
that I knew of — but he could lie
effectively by not telling all that he
knew, as I had learned the bitter
way. I said, "See here, I have no
reason to trust you, nor to trust this
young lady — if you will pardon me,
miss. But, while I haven’t any liking
for Mr. Bonforte, he does have the
reputation for being painfully, even
offensively, honest. When do I get
to talk to him ? As soon as we reach
Mars?”

Dak’s ugly, cheerful face was sud-
denly shadowed with sadness. "I’m
afraid not. Didn’t Penny tell you?”
"Tell me what?”

“Old son, that’s why we’ve got to
have a double for the chief. They’ve
kidnaped him.”

DOUBLE STAR

39

My head ached, possibly from the
doable weight, or perhaps from too
many shocks. "Now you know,” Dak
went on. "You know why Jock Du-
bois didn’t want to trust you with
it until after we raised ground. It
is the biggest news story since the
first landing on the Moon, and we
are sitting on it, doing our damned-
est to keep it from ever being
known. We hope to use you until
we can find him and get him back.
Matter of fact, you have already
started your impersonation. This ship
is not really the Go For Broke; it is
the chief’s private yacht and travel-
ing office, the Tom Paine. The Go
For Broke is riding a parking orbit
around Mars, with its transponder
giving out the recognition signal of
this ship — a fact known only to its
captain and comm officer — while the
Tommie tucks up her skirts and
rushes to Earth to pick up a substi-
tute for the chief. Do you begin to
scan it, old son?”

I admit that I did not. "Yes, but
. . . see here, captain, if Mr. Bon
forte’s political enemies have kid-
naped him, why keep it secret? I
should expect you to shout it from
the housetops.”

"On Earth we would. At New
Batavia we would. On Venus we
would. But here we are dealing with
Mars. Do you know the legend of
Kkkahgral the Younger?”

"Eh? I’m afraid I don’t.”

"You must study it; it will give
you insight into what makes a Mar-
tian tick. Briefly, this boy Kkkah
was to appear at a certain time and

40

place, thousands of years ago, for
a very high honor — like being
knighted. Through no fault of his
own — the way we would look at it
- — he failed to make it on time. Ob-
viously the only thing to do was to
kill him — by Martian standards. But
because of his youth and his dis-
tinguished record some of the radi-
cals present argued that he should
be allowed to go back and start over.
But Kkkahgral would have none of
it. He insisted on his right to prose-
cute the case himself, won it, and
was executed. Which makes him the
very embodiment, the patron saint,
of propriety on Mars.”

"That’s crazy!”

"Is it? We aren't Martians. They
are a very old race and they have
worked out a system of debts and
obligations to cover every possible
situation — the greatest formalists
conceivable. Compared with them,
the ancient Japanese, with their giri
and gimu , were outright anarchists.
Martians don’t have 'right’ and
'wrong’ — instead they have propriety
and impropriety, squared, cubed,
and loaded with gee juice. But where
it bears on this problem is that the
chief was about to be adopted into
the nest of Kkkahgral the Younger
himself. Do you scan me now?”

I still did not. To my mind this
Kkkah character was one of the more
loathsome items from "Le Grand
Guignol.” Broadbent went on, "It’s
simple enough. The chief is prob-
ably the greatest practical student
of Martian customs and psychology.
He has been working up to this for

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

years. Comes local noon on Wednes-
day at Lacus Soli the ceremony of
adoption takes place. If the chief is
there and goes through his paces
properly, everything is sweet. If he
is not there — and it makes no dif-
ference at all why he is not there —
his name is mud on Mars, in every
nest from pole to pole . . . and the
greatest interplanetary and inter-ra-
cial political coup ever attempted
falls flat on its face. Worse than
that, it will backfire.

"My guess is that the very least
that will happen is for Mars to with-
draw even from its present loose
association . with the Empire. Much
more likely there will be reprisals
and human beings will be killed —
maybe every human on Mars. Then
the extremists in the Humanity
Party would have their way and
Mars would be brought into the Em-
pire by force — but only after every
Martian was dead. And all set off
just by Bonforte failing to show up
for the adoption ceremony. Mar-
tians take these things very
seriously.’’

Dak left as suddenly as he had
appeared and Penelope Russell
turned on the picture projector
again. It occurred to me fretfully
that I should have asked him what
was to keep our enemies from simp-
ly killing me, if all that was need-
ed to upset the political applecart
was to keep Bonforte — in his proper
person, or through his double —
from attending some barbaric Mar-
tian ceremony. But I had forgotten

to ask — perhaps I was subconscious-
ly afraid of the answer.

But shortly I was again studying
Bonforte, watching his movements
and gestures, feeling his expressions,
subvocalizing the tones of his voice,
while floating in that detached, warm
reverie of artistic effort. Already I
was "wearing his head."

I was panicked out of it when
the images shifted to one in which
Bonforte was surrounded by Mar-
tians, touched by their pseudolimbs.
I had been so deep inside the pic-
ture that I could actually feel them
myself . . . and the stink was un-
bearable. I made a strangled noise
and clawed at it. "Shut it off. 1 ”

The lights came up and the pic-
ture disappeared. Miss Russell was
looking at me. "What in the world
is the matter with you?”

I tried to get my breath and stop
trembling. "Miss Russell ... I am
very sorry . . . but please . . . don’t
turn that on again. I can’t stand
Martians.”

She looked at me as if she could
not believe what she saw but de-
spised it anyhow. "I told them,” she
said slowly and scornfully, "that this
ridiculous scheme would not work.”

"I am very sorry. I cannot help
it.”

She did not answer but climbed
heavily out of the cider press. She
did not walk as easily at two gravi-
ties as Dak did, but she managed.
She left without another word, clos-
ing the door as she went.

She did not return. Instead the

41

DOUBLE STAR

door was opened by a man who ap-
peared to be inhabiting a giant kid-
die stroller. "Howdy there, young
fellow!” he boomed out. He was
sixtyish, a bit too heavy, and bland;
I did not have to see his diploma
to be aware that his was a "bedside”
manner.

"How do you do, sir?”

"Well enough. Better at lower
acceleration.” He glanced down at
the contrivance he was strapped into.
"How do you like my corset on-
wheels? Not stylish, perhaps, but it
takes some of the strain off my heart.
By the way, just to keep the record
straight, I’m Dr. Capek, Mr. Bon-
forte’s personal therapist. I know
who you are. Now what’s this we
hear about you and Martians?”

I tried to explain it clearly and
unemotionally.

Dr. Capek nodded. "Captain
Broadbent should have told me. I
would have changed the order of
your indoctrination program. The
captain is a competent young fellow
in his way but his muscles run ahead
of his brain on occasion ... he is
so perfectly normal an extrovert that
he frightens me. But no harm done.
Mr. Smythe, I want your permission
to hypnotize you. You have my word
as a physician that it will be used
only to help you in this matter and
that I will in no wise tamper with
your personal integration.” He
pulled out an old-fashioned pocket
watch of the sort that is almost a
badge of his profession and took my
pulse.

I answered, "You have my per-

mission readily, sir . . . but it won’t
do any good. I can’t go under." I
had learned hypnotic techniques my-
self, during the time I was showing
my mentalist act, but my teachers
had never had any luck hypnotizing
me. A touch of hypnotism is very
useful to such an act, especially if
the local police aren’t too fussy about
the laws the medical association has
hampered us with.

"So? Well, we’ll just liave to do
the best we can, then. Suppose you
relax, get comfortable, and we’ll
talk about your problem.” He still
kept the watch in his hand, fiddling
with it and twisting the chain, after
he had stopped taking my pulse. I
started to mention it, since it was
catching the reading light just over
my head, but decided that it was
probably a nervous habit of which
he was not aware and really too
trivial a matter to call to the atten-
tion of a stranger.

"I’m relaxed,” I assured him.
"Ask me anything you wish. Or free
association, if you prefer.”

"Just let yourself float,” he said
softly. "Two gravities makes you
feel heavy, doesn’t it? I usually just
sleep through it myself. It pulls the
blood out of the brain, makes one
sleep . . . we’ll be heavy . . . we’ll
the drive again. We’ll all have to
sleep . . . we’ll be heavy . . . we’ll
have to sleep — ”

I started to tell him that he had
better put his watch away ... or
it would spin right out of his hand.
Instead I fell asleep.

42

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

When I woke up, the other ac-
celeration bunk was occupied by Dr.
Capek. "Howdy, Bub,” he greeted
me. "I got tired of that confounded
perambulator and decided to stretch
out here and distribute the strain.”

"Uh, are we back on two gravi-
ties again?”

"Eh? Oh, yes! We’re on two
gravities.”

"I’m sorry I blacked out. How
long was I asleep?”

"Oh, not very long. How do you
feel?”

"Fine. Wonderfully rested, in
fact.”

"It frequently has that effect.
Heavy boost, I mean. Feel like see-
ing some more pictures?”

"Why, certainly, if you say so,
doctor.”

"O. K.” He reached up and again
the room went dark.

I was braced for the notion that
he was going to show me more pic-
tures of Martians; I made up my
mind not to panic. After all, I had
found it necessary on many occa-
sions to pretend that they were not
present; surely motion pictures of
them should not affect me — I had
simply been surprised earlier.

They were indeed stereos of Mar-
tians, both with and without Mr.
Bonforte. I found it possible to
study them with detached mind,
without terror or disgust.

Suddenly I realized that I was
enjoying looking at them!

I let out some exclamation and
Capek stopped the film. "Trouble?”

"Doctor . . . you hypnotized me!”

"You told me to.”

"But I can’t be hypnotized.”
"Sorry to hear it.”

"Uh . . . so you managed it. I’m
not too dense to see that.” I added,
"Suppose we try those pictures
again? I can’t really believe it.”

He switched them on and I
watched and wondered. Martians
were not disgusting, if one looked
at them without prejudice; they
weren’t even ugly. In fact they pos-
sessed the same quaint grace as a
Chinese pagoda. True, they were
not human in form, but neither is
a bird of paradise — and birds of
paradise are the loveliest things
alive.

I began to realize, too, that their
pseudolimbs could be very expres-
sive; their awkward gestures showed
some of the bumbling friendliness
of puppies. I knew now that I had
looked at Martians all my life
through the dark glasses of hate and
fear.

Of course, I mused, their stench
would still take getting used to, but
—and then I suddenly realized that
I was smelling them, the unmistak-
able odor . . . and I didn’t mind it
a bit! In fact I liked it. "Doctor!”
I said urgently. "This machine has
a ’smelly’ attachment — doesn’t it?”
"Eh? I believe not. No, I’m sure
it hasn’t — too much parasitic weight
for a yacht.”

"But it must. I can smell them
very plainly.”

"Oh, yes.” He looked slightly
shamefaced. "Bub, I did one thing

DOUBLE STAR

43

to you that I hope will cause you
no inconvenience.”

"Sir?”

"While we were digging around
inside your skull it became evident
that a lot of your neurotic orienta-
tion about Martians was triggered
by their body odor. I didn't have
time to do a deep job so I had to
offset it. I asked Penny — that’s tire
youngster who was in here before
— for a loan of some of the per-
fume she uses. I’m afraid that, from
here on out. Bub, Martians are go-
ing to smell like a Parisian house
of joy to you. If I had had time I
would have used some homelier
pleasant odor, like ripe strawberries
or hotcakes and syrup. But I had
to improvise.”

I sniffed. Yes, it did smell like
a heavy expensive perfume . . . and
yet, damn it, it was unmistakably
the reek of Martians. "I like it.”

"You can’t help liking it.”

"But you must have spilled the
whole bottle in here. The place is
drenched with it.”

"Huh? Not at all. I merely waved
the stopper under your nose a half
hour ago, then gave the bottle back
to Penny and she went away with
it.” He sniffed. "The odor is gone
now. 'Jungle Lust’ it said on the
bottle. Seemed to have a lot of musk
in it. I accused Penny of trying to
make the crew space-happy and she
just laughed at me.” He reached up
and switched off the stereopix.
"We’ve had enough of those for
now. I want to get you onto some-
thing more useful.”

44

When the pictures faded out, the
fragrance faded with them, just as
it does with "smelly” equipment. I
was forced to admit to myself that
it was all in the head. But, as an
actor, I was intellectually aware of
that truth anyhow.

When Penny came back in a few
minutes later, she had a fragrance
exactly like a Martian.

I loved it.

IV

My education continued in that
room — Mr. Bonforte’s guest room,
it was — until turnover. I had no
sleep, other than under hypnosis,
and did not seem to need any.
Either Doc Capek or Penny stuck
with me and helped me the whole
time. Fortunately my man was as
thoroughly photographed and re-
corded as perhaps any man in his-
tory and I had, as well, the dose
co-operation of his intimates. There
was endless material; the problem
was to see how much I could assimi-
late, both awake and under hyp-
nosis.

. I don’t know at what point I quit
disliking Bonforte. Capek assured
me — and I believe him — that he did
not implant a hypnotic suggestion
on this point; I had not asked for
it and I am quite certain that Capek
was meticulous about the ethical re-
sponsibilities of a physician and hyp-
notherapist. But I suppose that it
was an inevitable concomitant of the
role — I rather think I would learn
to like Jack the Ripper if I studied

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

for the part. Look at it this way:
to learn a role truly, you must for
a time become that character. And
a man either likes himself, or he
commits suicide, one way or another.

"To understand all is to forgive
all" — and I was beginning to un-
derstand Bonforte.

At turnover we got that one-
gravity rest that Dak had promised.
We never were in free fall, not for
an instant; instead of putting out
the torch, which I gather they hate
to do while underway, the ship de-
scribed what Dak called a 180-de-
gree skew turn. It leaves the ship
on boost the whole time and is done
rather quickly, but it has an oddly
disturbing effect on the sense of
balance. The effect has a name some-
thing like "Coriolanus.” Coriolis?

All I know about spaceships is
that the ones that operate from the

surface of a planet are true rockets
but the voyageurs call them "tea
kettles” because of the steam jet of
water or hydrog’en they boost with.
They aren’t considered real atomic-
power ships even though the jet is
heated by an atomic pile. The long-
jump ships such as the Tom Paine,
torchships that is, are — so they tell
me — the real thing, making use of
E equals MC-squared, or is it M
equals EC-squared? You know — the
thing Einstein invented.

Dak did his best to explain it all
to me, and no doubt it is very in-
teresting to those who care for such
things. But I can’t imagine why a
gentleman should bother with such.
It seems to me that every time those
scientific laddies get busy with their
slide rules life becomes more com-
plicated. What was wrong with
things the way they were?

DOUBLE STAR

45 '

During the two hours we were
on one gravity I was moved up to
Bonforte’s cabin. I started wearing
his clothes and his face and every-
one was careful to call me "Mr.
Bonforte” or "Chief” or (in the
case of Dr. Capek) "Joseph,” the
idea being, of course, to help me
build the part.

Everyone but Penny, that is . . .
she simply would not call me "Mr.
Bonforte.” She did her best to help,
but she could not bring herself to
that. It was clear as scripture that
she was a secretary who silently and
hopelessly loved her boss, and she
resented me with a deep, illogical,
but natural bitterness. It made it
hard for both of us, especially as I
was finding her most attractive. No
man can do his best work with a
woman constantly around him who
despises him. But I could not dis-
like her in return; . I felt deeply
sorry for her — even though I was
decidedly irked.

We were on a try-out-in-the-sticks
basis now, as not everyone in the
Tom Paine knew that I was not
Bonforte. I did not know exactly
which ones knew of the substitution,
but I was allowed to relax and ask
questions only in the presence of
Dak, Penny, and Dr. Capek. I was
fairly sure that Bonforte’s chief
clerk, Mr. Washington, knew but
never let on; he was a spare, elderly
mulatto with the tight-lipped masque
of a saint. There were two others
who certainly knew, but they were
not in die Tom Paine; they were

46

standing by and covering up from
the Go For Broke, handling press
releases and routine dispatches —
Bill Corpsman who was Bonforte’s
front man with the news services
and Roger Clifton. I don’t know
quite how to describe Clifton’s job.
Political deputy? He had been min-
ister-without-portfolio, you may re-
member, when Bonforte -was Su-
preme Minister, but that says
nothing. Let’s put it symbolically;
Bonforte handed out policy and
Clifton handed out patronage.

This small group had to know;
if any others knew it was not con-
sidered necessary to tell me. To be
sure, the other members of Bon-
forte’s staff and all the crew of the
Tom Paine knew that something odd
was going on; they did not neces-
sarily know what it was. A good
many people had seen me enter the
ship — but as "Benny Gray.” By the
time they saw me again I was al-
ready "Bonforte.”

Someone had had the foresight
to obtain real make-up equipment,
but I used almost none. At close
range make-up can be seen; even
Silicoflesh cannot be given the exact
texture of skin. I contented myself
with darkening my natural com-
plexion a couple of shades with
Semiperm and wearing his face,
from inside. I did have to sacrifice
quite a lot of hair and Dr. Capek
inhibited the roots. I did not mind;
an actor can always wear hair
pieces — and I was sure that this job
was certain to pay me a fee that

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

would let me retire for life, if I
wished.

On the other hand I was some-
times queasily aware that "life”
might not be too long . . . there
are those old saws about the man
who knew too much and the other
one about dead men and tales. But
truthfully I was beginning to trust
these people. They were all darn
nice people- — which told me as much
about Bonforte as I had learned by
listening to his speeches and seeing
his pix. A political figure is not a
single man, so I was learning, but
a compatible team. If Bonforte him-
self had not been a decent sort he
would not have had these people
around him.

The Martian language gave me
my greatest worry. Like most actors,
I had picked up enough Martian,
Venusian, Outer Jovian, et cetera,
to be able to fake in front of a
camera or on stage. But those rolled
or fluttered consonants are very diffi-
cult. Human vocal cords are not as
versatile as a Martian’s tympanus, I
believe, and, in any case, the semi-
phonetic spelling-out of those
sounds in Roman letters, for ex-
ample "kkk” or "jjj” or "rrr,” have
no more to do with the true sounds
than the "g” in "gnu” has to do
with the inhaled click with which
a Bantu pronounces "gnu.” "Jjj,”
for instance, closely resembles a
Bronx cheer.

Fortunately, Bonforte had no
great talent for other languages . . .
and I am a professional; my ears
really hear, I can imitate any sound.

from a buzz saw striking a nail in
a chunk of firewood to a setting
hen disturbed on her nest. It was
necessary only to acquire Martian
as poorly as Bonforte spoke it. He
had worked hard to overcome his
lack of talent, and every word and
phrase of Martian that he knew had
been sight-sound recorded so that
he could study his mistakes.

So I studied his mistakes, with
the projector moved into his office
and Penny at my elbow to sort out
the spools for me and answer ques-
tions.

Human languages fall into four
groups: inflecting ones as in Anglo-
American, positional as in Chinese,
agglutinative as in Old Turkish,
polysynthetic (sentence-units) as in
Eskimo ... to which, of course, we
now add alien structures as wildly
odd and as nearly impossible for the
human brain as non repetitive or
emergent Venusian. Luckily Mar-
tian is analogous to human speech
forms. Basic Martian, the trade lan-
guage, is positional and involves
only simple, concrete ideas . . . like
the greeting: "I see you.” High
Martian is polysynthetic and very
stylized, with an expression for every
nuance of their complex system of
rewards and punishments, obliga-
tions and debts. It had been almost
too much for Bonforte; Penny told
me that he could read those arrays
of dots they use for writing quite
easily but of the spoken form of
High Martian he could say only a
few hundred sentences.

DOUBLE STAR

47

Brother, how I studied those few
he had mastered !

The strain on Penny was even
greater than it was on me. Both
she and Dak spoke some Martian
but the chore of coaching me fell
on her as Dak had to spend most
of his time in the control room;
Jock’s death had left him short-
handed. We dropped from two
gravities to one for the last few
million miles of the approach, dur-
ing which time he never came be-
low at all. I spent it learning the
ritual I would have to know for the
adoption ceremony, with Penny’s
help.

I had just completed running
through the speech in which I was
to accept membership in the Kkkah
nest — a speech not unlike that, in
spirit, with which an orthodox Jew-
ish boy assumes the responsibilities
of manhood, but as fixed, as invar-
iable, as Hamlet’s Soliloquy. I had
read it, complete with Bonforte’s
mispronunciations and facial tic; I
finished and asked, How was
that?”

"That was quite good,” she an-
swered seriously.

"Thanks, Curly Top.” It was a
phrase I had lifted from the lan-
guage-practice spools in Bonforte’s
files; it was what Bonforte called
her when he was feeling mellow —
and it was perfectly in character.

"Don’t ■you dare call me that!”

I looked at her in honest amaze-
ment and answered, still in charac-
ter, "Why, Penny, my child!”

48

"Don't you call me that, either!
You fake! You phony! You...
actor!” She jumped up, ran as far
as she could, which was only to the
door . . . and stood there, faced
away from me, her face buried in
her hands and her shoulders shaking
with sobs.

I made a tremendous effort and
lifted myself out of the character —
pulled in my belly, let my own face
come up, answered in my own voice.
"Miss Russell!”

She stopped crying, whirled
around, looked at me, and her jaw
dropped. I added, still in my nor-
mal self, "Come back here and sit
down.”

I thought she was going to re-
fuse, then she seemed to think bet-
ter of it, came slowly back and sat
down, her hands in her lap but with
her face that of a little girl who is
"saving up more spit.”

I let her sit for a moment, then
said quietly, "Yes, Miss Russell, 1
am an actor. Is that a reason for you
to insult me?”

She simply looked stubborn.

"As an actor, I am here to do an
actor’s job. You know why. You
know, too, that I was tricked into
taking it ... it is not a job I would
have accepted with my eyes open,
even in my wildest moments. I hate
having to do it considerably more
than you hate having me do it —
for despite Captain Broadbent’s
cheerful assurances I am not at all
sure that I will come out of it with
my skin intact . . . and I’m awfully
fond of my skin; it’s the only one

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

I have. I believe, too, that I know
why you find it hard to accept me.
But is that any reason for you to
make my job harder than it has to
be?”

She mumbled. I said sharply,
"Speak up!”

"It’s dishonest! It’s indecent!”

I sighed. "It certainly is. More
than that, it is impossible — without
the whole-hearted support of the
other members of the cast. So let’s
call Captain Broadbent down here
and tell him. Let’s call it off.”

She jerked her face up and said,
"Oh, no! We can’t do that.”

"Why can’t we? A far better
thing to drop it now than to present
it and have it flop. I can’t give a
performance under these conditions.
Let’s admit it.”

"But . . . but . . . we've got to!
It’s necessary.”

"Why is it necessary, Miss Rus-
sell? Political reasons? I have not
the slightest interest in politics . . .
and I doubt if you have any really
deep interest. So why must we do
it?”

"Because . . . because he — ” She
stopped, unable to go on, strangled
by sobs.

I got up, went over, and put a
hand on her shoulder. "I know. Be-
cause if we don’t, something that he
has spent years building up will
fall to pieces. Because he can’t do
it himself and his friends are trying
to cover up and do it for him. Be-
cause his friends are loyal to him.
Because you are loyal to him. Never-
theless it hurts you to see someone

else in the place that is rightfully
his. Besides that, you are half out
of your mind with grief and worry
about him. Aren’t you?”

"Yes.” I could barely hear it.

I took hold of her chin and tilted
her face up. "I know why you find
it so hard to have me here, in his
place. You love him. But I’m doing
the best job for him I know how.
Confound it, woman! — do yon have
to make my job six times harder by
treating me like dirt?”

She looked shocked. For a mo-
ment I thought she was going to
slap me. Then she said brokenly, "I
am sorry. I am very sorry. I won’t
let it happen again.”

I let go her chin and said briskly,
"Then let’s get back to work.”

She did not move. "Can you for-
give me?”

"Huh? There’s nothing to for-
give, Penny. You were acting up be-
cause you love him and you were
worried. Now let’s get to work. I’ve
got to be letter-perfect — and it’s only
hours away.” I dropped at once back
into the role.

She picked up a spool and started
the projector again. I watched him
through it once, then did the ac-
ceptance speech with the sound cut
out but stereo on, matching my voice
— his voice, I mean — to the moving
image. She watched me, looking
from the image back to my face
with a dazed look on her own. We
finished and I switched it off my-
self. "How was that?”

"That was perfect!”

DOUBLE STAR

49

I smiled his smile. "Thanks, Curly
Top.’’

"Not at all . . . 'Mr. Bonforte’.”

Two hours later we made rendez-
vous with the Go For Broke.

Dak brought Roger Clifton and
Bill Corpsman to my cabin as soon
as the Go For Broke had transferred
them. I knew them from pictures.
I stood up and said, "Hello, Rog.
Glad to see you, Bill.” My voice
was warm but casual; on the level
at which these people operated, a
hasty trip to Earth and back was
simply a few days separation and
nothing more. I limped over and
offered my hand. The ship was at
the moment under low boost as it
adjusted to a much tighter orbit than
the Go For Broke had been riding
in.

Clifton threw me a quick glance,
then played up. He took his cigar
out of his mouth, shook hands, and
said quietly, "Glad to see you back,
chief.” He was a small man, bald-
headed and middle-aged, and looked
like a lawyer and a good poker
player.

"Anything special while I was
away?”

"No. Just routine. I gave Penny
the 61 e.”

"Good.” I turned to Bill Corps-
man, again offered my hand.

He did not take it. Instead he put
his fists on his hips, looked up at
me, and whistled. "Amazing! I real-
ly do believe we" stand a chance of
getting away with it.” He looked
me up and down, then said, "Turn

50

around, Smythe. Move around. I
want to see you walk.”

I found that I was actually feeling
the annoyance that Bonforte would
have felt at such uncalled-for im-
pertinence, and, of course, it showed
in my face. Dak touched Corps-
man’s sleeve and said quickly,
"Knock it off. Bill. You remember
what we agreed?”

"Chicken tracks!” Corpsman an-
swered. "This room is soundproofed.
I just want to make sure he is up
to it. Smythe, how’s your Martian ?
Can you spiel it?”

I answered with a single squeak-
ing polysyllabic in High Martian, a
sentence meaning roughly, "Proper
conduct demands that one of us
leave!” — but it means far more than
that, as it is a challenge which usu-
ally ends in someone’s nest being
notified of a demise.

I don’t think Corpsman under-
stood it, for he grinned and an-
swered, "I've got to hand it to you,
Smythe, That’s good.”

But Dak understood it. He took
Corpsman by the arm and said,
"Bill, I told you to knock it off.
You’re in my ship and that’s an or-
der. We play it straight from here
on — every second.”

Clifton added, "Pay attention to
him, Bill. You know we agreed that
was the way to do it. Otherwise
somebody might slip.”

Corpsman glanced at him, then
shrugged. "All right, all right. I was
just checking up — after all, this was
my idea.” He gave me a one-sided

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

smile and said, "Howdy, Mr. Bon-
forte. Glad to see you back.”

- There was a shade too much
emphasis on "Mister” but I an-
swered, "Good to be back, Bill.
Anything special I need to know
before we go down?”

"I guess not. Press conference at
Goddard City after the ceremonies.”
I could see him watching me to see
how I would take it.

I nodded. "Very well.”

Dak said hastily, "Say, Rog, how
about that? Is it necessary? Did you
authorize it?”

"I was going to add,” Corpsman
went on, turning to Clifton, "before
the skipper here got the jitters, that
I can take it myself and tell the boys
that the chief has dry laryngitis from
the ceremonies ... or we can limit
it to written questions submitted
ahead of time and I'll get the an-
swers written out for him while the
ceremonies are going on. Seeing that
he looks and sounds so good close
up I would say to risk it. How about
it, Mr. . . . 'Bonforte?’ Think you
can swing it?”

"I see no problem involved in it,
Bill.” I was thinking that if I man-
aged to get by the Martians without
a slip I would undertake to ad-lib
double-talk to a bunch of human
reporters as long as they wanted to
listen. I had good command of Bon-
forte’s speaking style by now and
at least a rough notion of his poli-
cies and attitudes — and I need not
be specific.

But Clifton looked worried. Be-
fore he could speak the ship’s horn

brayed out, "Captain is requested
to come to the control room. Minus
four minutes.”

Dak said quickly, "You all will
have to settle it. I’ve got to put this
sled in its slot . . . I’ve got nobody
up there but young Epstein.” He
dashed for the door.

Corpsman called out, "Hey, skip!
I wanted to tell you — ” He was out
the door and following Dak with-
out waiting to say good-by.

Roger Clifton closed the door
Corpsman had left open, came back
and said slowly, "Do you want to
risk this press conference?”

"That is up to you. I want to do
the job.”

"Mm-m-m . . . then I’m inclined
to risk it- — if we use the written-
questions method. But I’ll check
Bill’s answers myself before you
have to give them.”

"Very well.” I added, "If you
can find a way to let me have them
ten minutes or so ahead of time,
there shouldn’t be any difficulty. I’m
a very quick study.”

He inspected me. "I quite believe
it . . . chief. All right, I’ll have
Penny slip the answers to you right
after the ceremonies. Then you can
excuse yourself to go to the men’s
room and just stay there until you
are sure of them.”

"That should work.”

"I think so. Uh, I must say I feel
considerably better now that I’ve
seen you. Is there anything I can
do for you?”

DOUBLE STAR

51

"I think not, Rog. Yes, there is,
too. Any word about . . . him?”
"Eh? Well, yes and no. He’s still
in Goddard City; we’re sure of that.
He hasn’t been taken off Mars, nor
even out in the country. We blocked
them on that, if that was their in-
tention.”

"Eh? Goddard City is not a big
place, is it? Not more than a hun-
dred thousand? What’s the hitch?”
“The hitch is that we don’t dare
admit that you ... I mean that he
... is missing. Once we have this
adoption thing wrapped up, we can
put you out of sight, then announce
the kidnaping as if it had just taken
place — and make them take the city
apart rivet by rivet. The city au-
thorities are all Humanity Party ap-
pointees, but they will have to co-
operate — after the ceremony. It will
be the most whole-hearted co-opera-
tion you ever saw, for they will be
deadly anxious to produce him be-
fore the whole Kkkahgral nest
swarms over them and tears the city
down around their ears.”

"Oh. I’m still learning about Mar-
tian psychology and customs.”
"Aren’t we all!”

“Rog? Mm-m-m . . . what leads
you to think that he is still alive?
Wouldn’t their purpose be better
served — and with less risk — just by
killing him?” I was thinking queas-
ily how simple it had turned out to
be to get rid of a body, if a man
was ruthless enough.

"I see what you mean. But that,
too, is tied up with Martian notions
about ’propriety’.” (He used the

Martian word) "Death is the one
acceptable excuse for not carrying
out an obligation. If he were simply
killed, they would adopt him into
the nest after his death — and then
the whole nest and probably every
nest on Mars would set out to avenge
him. They would not mind in the
least if the whole human race were
to die or be killed — but to kill this
one human being to keep him from
being adopted, that’s another kettle
of fish entirely. Matter of obliga-
tion and propriety ... in some ways
a Martian’s response to a situation
is so automatic as to remind one of
instinct. It is not, of course, since
they are incredibly intelligent. But
they do the damnedest things.” ’He
frowned and added, "Sometimes I
wish I had never left Sussex.”

The warning hooter broke up the
discussion by forcing us to hurry
to our bunks. Dak had cut it fine
on purpose; the shuttle rocket from
Goddard City was waiting for us
when we settled into free fall. All
five of us went down, which just
filled the passenger couches — again
a matter of planning, for the Resi-
dent Commissioner had expressed
the intention of coming up to meet
me and had been dissuaded only by
Dak’s message to him that our party
would require all the space.

I tried to get a better look at the
Martian surface as we went down,
as I had had only one glimpse, of
it, from the control room of the
Tom Paine — since I was supposed
to have been there many times I

52

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

could not show the normal curiosity
of a tourist. I did not get much of
a look; the shuttle pilot did not turn
us so that we could see until he
leveled off for his glide approach
and I was busy then putting on my
oxygen mask.

That pesky Mars-type mask almost
finished us; I had never had a
chance to practice with it — Dak did
not think of it and I had not real-
ized it would be a problem; I had
worn both spacesuit and aqualung
on other occasions and I thought
this would be about the same. It
was not. The' model Bonforte fa-
vored was a mouth-free type, a Mit-
subishi "Sweet Winds” which
pressurizes directly at the nostrils —
a nose clamp, nostril plugs, tubes
up each nostril which then run back
under each ear to the supercharger
on the back of your neck. I concede
that it is a fine device, once you get
used to it, since you can talk, eat,
drink, et cetera, while wearing it.
But I would rather have a dentist
put both hands in my mouth.

The real difficulty is that you
have to exercise conscious control

on the muscles that close the back
of your mouth, or you hiss like a
teakettle, since the thing operates
on a pressure difference. Fortunately
the pilot equalized to Mars-surface
pressure once we all had our masks
on, which gave me twenty minutes
or so to get used to it. But for a
few moments I thought the jig was
up, just over a silly piece of
gadgetry. But I reminded myself
that I had worn the thing hundreds
of times before and that I was as
used to it as I was to my toothbrush.
Presently I believed it.

Dak had been able to avoid hav-
ing the Resident Commissioner chit-
chat with me for an hour on the way
down but it had not been possible
to miss him entirely; he met the
shuttle at the skyfield. The close
timing did keep me from having to
cope with other humans, since I had
to go at once into the Martian City.
It made sense, but it seemed strange
that I would be safer among Mar-
tians than among my own kind.

But it seemed even stranger to be
on Mars.

TO BE CONTINUED

Problem facing the National Manpower Study Commission:

How many trained technicians must be graduated in one year to offset
the loss of two men the world lost in the last twelve months — Albert
Einstein and Enrico Fermi?

The existence of the question in part explains the greatly increased
interest in studies of the nature of creative thought.

DOUBLE STAR

53

THE LAST THOUSAND MILES

BY DEAN MCLAUGHLIN

You can l expect a population to support an
expensive idea . . . after the mood has passed.
But it gets rugged if you’re dependent
on that vanished support!

Illustrated by Emsh

54

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

"I don’t know if I can do it,”
Roger Sherman confessed. "If I had
a choice, I’d say no. I wouldn’t try.
But I guess I’ve got to.”

"It’s the only chance we have,”
Captain Milburn reminded him.
"Don't worry about it. We’re sure
you can do it.”

"Well I’m not,” Sherman
argued.

"If anyone can do it, Roger, you
can.” The captain was firm.

"I ... I just don’t know,” Sher-
man repeated, just to be sure the
captain understood.

A crewman with a cutting torch
drifted up to them and caught a
handhold on a beam. "What about
that bulkhead there?” He pointed at
a section of the wall.

Captain Milburn glanced at it for
only a moment. "Yeah. Take it,” he
decided. "Take the whole wall.”

"Right,” the crewman responded.
He pushed off.

"This ship isn’t built to hit atmos-
phere,” Sherman argued. "It’s like
. . . like trying to fly a plane under
water.”

"But you think you can do it,”
Captain Milburn said.

”1 don’t know. I wish I did. I
think maybe I can do it, but I don’t
know.”

The captain shrugged. "We’ll just
have to try. 1 think you can do it.”

"It’s your decision, sir. God knows,
I wouldn’t want to make it.”

"It’s your job, Roger. You can
back out if you want to. I don’t want
to force you if you don’t think it’s
possible.”

TIIE LAST THOUSAND MILES

He broke off there. The man with
the cutting torch was attacking a
thick beam that cut across the face
of the wall.

"Hey, leave that,” he yelled.

The crewman looked up guiltily.

"That beam’s what braces this
piggy bank against the jet,” Captain
Milburn told him. "Without it, when
Roger puts the shove under us, it’ll
mush this ship together like a tin
can somebody stepped on.”

"Well then, whattaya want me to
do?” the crewman demanded.

Wayne Staples drifted into the
compartment. He was wearing a
spacesuit and he had the helmet un-
der his arm. He waited unobtrusive-
ly while Milburn finished with the
crewman.

"Take the plates,” Milburn or-
dered. “Take every plate in the ship,
but leave those beams alone!”

"Yes, sir,” the crewman said.

Milburn turned to Staples. "Yeah?
What is it?”

"We’ve finished searching the
orbitbase, sir,” Wayne Staples re-
ported.

"Well?” the captain demanded.
"Find anything?”

"Oh, yes, sir,” Staples said quick-
ly. "It’s like walking in a tomb.
They left everything there. I even
found a guy’s toothbrush.”

"I didn’t send you to look for
toothbrushes,” the captain reminded
him.

"I know that, sir,” Staples said,
quashed. "It’s been empty a long
time, sir. The air’s all gone -out of
it.”

55

Sherman couldn’t wait any longer.
"What about the tanks?” he asked.
"Was there any water?”’

He wasn’t really hopeful, but he
had to ask. The Jove needed water
if he was going to pilot it down.
Every drop was worth its weight in
blood.

"There wasn’t much,” Staples ad-
mitted. "Most of it was evaporated
away, but there was a little left.
Frozen, of course, but that’s all
right. It’ll be easier to handle that
way.”

"How much?” Sherman pressed
him.

Staples shrugged. "I don’t know,”
he said carelessly. "A couple, three
tons. Something like that.”

"Every ounce counts,” Milburn
said. "Get it aboard. Can you man-
age it all right?”

"It’ll be some trouble,” Staples
admitted. "But we’ll do it. Some-
how.”

"Good,” Milburn said. "And try
to get a better figure on how much
there is. It may be the difference be-
tween making it and not making it.
What about the black plaster? Find
any?”

"Oh, sure. Lots of it.”

"Is there enough ?” Milburn prod-
ded.

"Enough to cover the ship five
times,” Staples assured plainly.

"That’s what I wanted to know,”
Milburn snapped. "We’ll need every
bit of it. Get it aboard. What else
did you find?”

"There was a stock of scout pro-
jectiles and mounts,” Staples offered.

"We’ll want those, too,” Milburn
said.

Roger Sherman got tired of it. He
kicked off and drifted over to the
astrodome. The cover plate was off
and the view was faced toward
Earth. Earth was big. It filled all the
view except a crescent rim of night-
and-stars in the upper left-hand side,
and there was a lot more of Earth
he couldn’t see.

It was only a thousand miles .
down, and it was good to see. After
being away for so' long, after having
gone so far, it was a welcome sight.
The oceans were blue and the land
was green and brown and gray, and
the rivers were thin lines of blue
through the richest green. It was
Earth, and it was beautiful.

It made him feel sick. It was so
terribly unfair. They had gone far-
ther than any men had gone before
- — all the way out to Jupiter — and
come home again. Come home like
Ulysses, after seven years.

. . . And found they were for-
gotten. The orbitbase was empty.
Even the air was gone from it. There
was no ship to carry them the last
thousand miles. They had only the
Jove, which had borne them for
all the millions of miles they had
gone, but which had never been
built to go that terrible last thousand
miles home.

A thousand miles and the barrier
of atmosphere — atmosphere that
burned a meteor to nothing in the
flick of an eyelash — atmosphere that
had destroyed half a hundred ships

56

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

without a trace before men learned
how to build them and how to pilot
them down from safe, sterile space.

So they would try it anyway — try
going down in the ]ove. Maybe it
was suicide, but they had to do it.

Because there were no other ships.
Because there wouldn’t be any other
ships. Because the groundhogs had
scrapped every ship there ever was,
and left the orbitbase to float alone
and empty out in space like the
cast-off shell of a sucked egg.

Sherman wanted to cry. Oh! the
stupid . . . stupid —

. . . The fearful thousand miles.
Earth spread below him, just out of
reach, a thousand miles down. It was
like a mirage in the desert.

"What are the chances?” Captain
Milburn asked soberly.

Sherman muttered bitterly: "Why
did they have to do it?”

"Do it?” Milburn echoed. "Scrap
the ships? Abandon the orbitbase?
I don’t know, Roger. Maybe they
were afraid — because space was
something they didn’t understand.
But I don’t think so. That never
was much of a. reason for men to
give up a thing. No — I guess they
just didn’t care. It didn’t mean any-
thing to them.”

"Didn’t mean anything!” Sherman
cried. "My God — !”

"Oh, in the beginning it meant
something. It was a challenge — a
dare. But once they proved they
could do it — Hillary never climbed
Everest again. I guess there’s a point
there, somewhere.”

THE LAST THOUSAND MILES

"Yeah. Somewhere,” Sherman
muttered.

"What are the chances, Roger?”
the captain asked again.

"I tell you, sir. I just don’t know.”

"But there is a chance.”

"Of course there’s a chance. Or
I wouldn’t try.”

"That’s what I wanted, Roger. If
anyone can do it, you can. If it’s
humanly possible, Roger, you can
do it.”

"I wonder if Blair and Ellis knew
that.”

"Are you still fretting over that,
Roger? Hell, man. That was three
years ago!”

"Yes! But I didn’t try!” Sherman
protested. "By God, I didn’t even
try!”

It was out there — all the way out
there — where Jupiter filled half the
sky. It was an ugly thing — striped
like a kid’s ball with dirty colors,
and the red spot like the mouth of
some unspeakable beast.

While the Jove held its orbit
around the planet, its shuttles car-
ried the explorers to its moons and
even to the fringes of the planet’s
atmosphere. And one of the shuttles
blew up.

Royce, at the communicator, was
the first to know about it. He was
talking with the shuttle when it fol-
lowed its orbit around behind Jupi-
ter. He waited the proper length of
time for the shuttle to come back
into line-of-sight, and then tried to
re-establish contact.

He couldn’t do it. The shuttle

57

wasn’t there. Half an hour later, he
picked up the suit-radios of Blair
and Ellis, the two men who had
been in the shuttle. The signals were
weak and mushy, and Royce didn’t
need to hear what Blair and Ellis
were saying to know what had hap-
pened.

For one thing, they were in too
close to Jupiter — much closer than
the shuttle’s orbit would have put
them.

Roger Sherman ordered the other
shuttle got ready the instant he heard
it. He hurried to the communica-
tions cell. Captain Milburn was al-
ready there.

Royce managed to fix their posi-
tions by gauging the direction of
their signals and figuring the. dis-
tance by the time between a signal-
over and a reply. With a couple of
fixes, Sherman roughed-out their tra-
jectories, and a third fix on each
confirmed his figures. .

Sherman was already jotting more
figures when Captain Milburn said,
"Can you go pick them up?”

"No,” Sherman muttered, and
went on jotting figures.

"Blair says he’s got four and a
half hours’ air,” Royce reported.
"He wants to know how soon you’ll
pick them up.”

“Tell him he’s got plenty,” Sher-
man said. “He’ll hit atmosphere in
three and a quarter.”

To the captain, he said, "There’s
nothing I can do.” He passed over
his sheet of figures. "The only orbit
that would get me to them before
they hit air would burn more than

58

the shuttle’s tanks hold. I’m not go-
ing after them.”

"Shall I tell them?” Royce wanted
to know.

Captain Milburn gestured, shush-
ing him. "Don’t tell them.” And to
Sherman, "You’re sure?”

"I’m sure.”

"Check the figures again.”

"I checked them, sir.”

"I said check them again,” Mil-
burn ordered.

Sherman took the paper and
checked his calculations. There was
nothing wrong with them. He gave
the sheet to the captain. "You check
them, sir?’

Milburn crumpled the paper and
threw it away. Weightless, it floated
in the air.

"What do I tell them?” Royce
asked.

"Tell them — ” the captain began,
and stopped. He nudged Sherman.
"You tell them.”

It was something he couldn’t do.
It was hard enough to think of the
men adrift in space with nothing to
hang on to — falling helplessly
toward the great, ugly mass of the
planet. He couldn’t tell them he had
plotted their orbits and the orbits
ended at death — that there was
nothing else possible, and it was
only three hours away.

“No,” he whispered hoarsely.
"Don’t make me.”

"Tell them,” the captain in-
structed Royce, "to make whatever
peace with their gods they can.
They’ve got three hours.”

Royce told them.

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

"They want to talk to you,’’ lloyce
told Sherman after a moment.

"No," Sherman said. It would be
like talking to men he’d killed. "I
won’t. You can’t make me.”

"Roger, it’s the least you can do,”
the captain said, looking solemnly at
him. "Talk to them.”

Royce held the microphone and
earpiece out to him. He took them
with numb fingers.

"Mike . . . Owen . . . I’m sorry.”
He meant it as he had never meant
anything in his life.

And Owen Blair’s voice came
through, mushy with the interfer-
ence, accusing no one and reproach-
ing no one, "If you can’t . . . you
can’t . . . way it is — ”

Sherman gave the set back to
Royce.

"I’ll have to announce it to the
ship,” the captain said. "Jim — warm
the PA.”

"It’s warm already, sir,” Royce
said, and passed him the PA mike.

The captain spoke into it. "At-
tention. Attention.” And the words
boomed echoing through the Jove.

Mike Ellis hit atmosphere first. He
burned out in half a minute. Owen
Blair didn’t go in for another fifteen
minutes, . but he didn’t last any
longer.

"I didn’t even try,” Sherman re-
peated. "That’s the thing, Bill. I
didn’t even try.”

"There wasn’t anything you could
do,” Captain Milburn said. So just
shut up about it. If you don’t think
you can take us down, say so now

THE LAST THOUSAND MILES

and we’ll try to think of something
else. But quit whining.”

He looked mad enough to blister
an egg.

Sherman backed off as if he’d been
slapped. "I’m willing to try,” he re-
peated. "But if I can do it or not — ”

"Shut up!” Milburn roared.

The crewman with the -cutting
torch had burned a plate out of the
wall. Grappling it with heavy gloves,
he towed it slowly toward the air
lock.

"It all depends on so many
things,” Sherman tried to explain.
"How much weight we can get rid
of — and how much we have in the
tanks — and whether I’m good
enough for the job — ”

"And how calm the atmosphere

is, ” Milburn interrupted disgustedly.
"And how much the ship can take.
And whether it sinks or floats when
we hit the water — Alihh! You make
me sick.”

He turned away, and turned back
again. "Listen, Roger. There’s just
one thing that’s going to make the
difference between whether we make

it, or we don’t. And that’s you,
Roger. You. You wouldn’t have
been with this expedition if you
weren’t the best pilot there is. But
if you don’t think you can do it,
now’s the time to say so.”

"Well ... all I can do is try — ”

The captain made an exasperated
face. "What can you expect?” he
muttered angrily, almost to himself.
And aloud, "And another thing —
if you’ve got to worry about it, don’t
do it where the men can hear you.

59

They’ve got enough to worry about
as it is.”

"Yes, sir,” said Sherman meekly.

The crewman came back from the
lock and put his torch to another
section of the wall. Another crew-
man entered the compartment. His
coverall was a mess.

"We got the hydroponics cleaned
out,” he reported. "The water’s still
in purification, but the job’s done.
We dumped everything.”

"How much water?” Milburn de-
manded.

"Thirteen tons, nine hundred
pounds, sir. Plus.”

"Fine,” the captain said. "Divert
it to the drive tank.”

"They’re doing that right now,”
the crewman reported.

"Get into ycur suit, then,” Mil-
burn ordered. "Report to Staples in
the orbitbase. He’s going to move
some ice over from there, and he can
use you.”

"Right, sir.” The crewman started
for the suiting room, unfastening his
coverall as he went.

“Dump your coverall outside,”
Milburn called after him. "You
won’t be needing it again.”

"On the knob, sir,” the man
answered.

Roger Sherman was looking down
at Earth again, thinking of the men-
ace the all-but-invisible atmos-
phere was. It could tear a ship to
shreds, and melt the shreds to vapor.
Even the night side was full of tur-
bulence — great gusts of rampant air
that could tear at a ship before a
pilot could pull away — drag the ship

6Q

down into air too thick for its speed-
ing shape to stand against — or rise
before the ship as impenetrably as a
wall. And the Jove was not built
to pass through atmosphere. Its
builders had never meant for it to
feel even the touch of air.

"Thirteen tons,” the captain re-
peated, smiling confidently. "And
nine hundred pounds. How does it
sound now?”

"A little better,” Sherman ad-
mitted half-heartedly. "But I can’t
really know anything one way or the
other until we’re on our way.”

Milburn frowned. "How do you
figure that?”

"That’s the first chance I’ll have
to find how the ship handles,” Sher-
man explained. "We’re taking a lot
of weight out, and we can’t more
than rough-guess how much. I’ve no
idea how off-balance we’ll be. And
I’ll be running the pile wide open.
There’s a lot of things we can’t be
sure of until I put a shove under
us.”

"Ummmm.” Milburn looked
thoughtfully. "And then it’s too late
to turn back.”

Sherman nodded. "Sink or swim,”
he said grimly. "Still want to go
through with it?”

Milburn looked him blackly in the
eyes. "Yes.”

Later, they toured the Jove to-
gether. Scott Riemer, the ship’s en-
gineer, made the tour with them.

All through the ship, men armed
with wrenches and cutting torches
were tearing out sections of wall and

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

banks of lockers and pieces of equip-
ment which had been ruled expend-
able. They were trimming the Jove
to a few picked bones.

"The hell of it is,” Scott Riemer
said as they watched the work pro-
ceed, "they built the Jove with as
little waste weight as they could —
and now we’ve got to trim it down.”

"Everything that’s not absolutely
necessary has to go,” Sherman in-
sisted. "Everything. A few pounds
too much and we’ll never make it.”

"We’ll make it,” the captain said
stubbornly.

They came to the galley. It hadn't
been touched.

"Dayton ! Joe Dayton !” Milburn
bawled.

THE LAST THOUSAND MILES

Joe Dayton, the galley master,
came out of the fresh-food locker
with a sack of hydroponic vege-
tables. He looked startled.

"Why’s this stuff still here?” the
captain demanded. His gesture swept
the compartment.

"We still have to eat,” the galley
master explained innocently.

"Like hell we do,” Milburn
snapped. "Issue each man a pint of
soup — double strength. And a quar-
ter pound of sugar and a quart of
water. And then clean this junk out
of here.”

"AH of it?”

"Down to the last tin can,” Mil-
burn ordered. "Food and everything.
There’s plenty of food where we’re

61

going, but we’ve got to get there.
Snap to it.”

"Yes, sir,” Dayton gulped.

As they left the galley, Joe Day-
ton was making soup.

"I’ve been thinking about all that
shield we’ve got between us and the
pile,” Scott Riemer said. "It’s a lot
of dead weight to be carrying
around.”

"Get a crew and peel it as thin
as you dare,” Milburn said.

"No,” Sherman objected flatly.

Milburn swung on him. "Why
not?” he demanded.

"Listen, sir,” Sherman said stub-
bornly. "We won’t have enough
water, no matter what way you look
at it, so I’m going to do the next
best thing. I’m going to run the
pile hotter than it’s ever been be-
fore. I’ll have to. We’re going to
need every inch of that shielding.
And wish there was more.”

Milburn scowled. He turned to
the engineer. "What’s the shield’s
safety factor?”

"Two,” Riemer said. He knew
what was coming.

"And the pile’s overload rating?”

"Three point five,” Scott Riemer
admitted. "With the understanding
that anything over one point five
would be of short duration and only
in extreme emergency.”

"We’re doing something this ship
wasn’t built for,” Sherman said.
"We’re too heavy, and the wrong
shape, and the wrong controls — and
we don’t have enough water to do
it. If that’s not an emergency, there’s
no such thing.”

62

"He’s right,” Milburn told the
engineer. “The shield stays.”

"It’s your decision, sir.”

They came to where the men were
tearing out the crew’s private
lockers. The men looked like they
didn’t relish what they were doing,
but they were doing it anyway. The
walls were already gone from the
compartment. This part of the ship
was a maze of naked girders, like
a scaffold inside a globe.

Sherman saw something small and
brown moving out there among the
beams. Captain Milburn must have
seen it, too, because he kicked off
toward it and pursued it.

The monkey flitted quickly
through the ship. They had a hard
time catching up with it. They
found it, finally, near the air lock.

Men were towing large sacks of
fresh vegetables up from the galley
and dumping them in the lock. But
one man had stopped and was feed-
ing the monkey a bit of carrot. He
was talking to the monkey, saying
senseless things in a friendly voice.
He roughed its short fur.

It ate the carrot greedily.

"Galbraith,” Milburn said.

The man looked up guiltily. "Sor-
ry, sir. I’ll get right to work, sir.”
And as if it explained everything,
"He was begging.”

The monkey got away from him.
It perched on a nearby beam and
munched its carrot in small, squirrel-
like nibbles.

"Bulkhead has to go,” Milburn
said.

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

The captain could have stuck a
knife in him and not brought such
a painful look to Galbraith’s face.

"He doesn’t weigh much,” the
crewman pleaded.

Milburn didn’t argue with him.
"He’s got to go,” he said.

"No! I won’t let you,” Galbraith
cried. He let go of his vegetable
sack, he pushed off and drifted away
from Milburn. "Here, Bulkhead,"
he called anxiously. "C’mere, kid.”
He clapped his hands enticingly and
went on calling.

Still nibbling carrot, Bulkhead
perched on his beam and goggled at
Galbraith innocently. He gathered
himself for a leap.

“Bulkhead,” Milburn command-
ed. “Come here.”

"No, Bulkhead,” Galbraith pro-
tested. "Here. Here, kid. He'll hurt
you. He’ll hurt you.”

Milburn pulled a carrot out of the
sack. He held it so Bulkhead could
see it. “Here, Bulkhead,” he in-
vited.

Bulkhead sprang toward the cap-
tain.

"No!” Galbraith cried. “No,
Bulkhead! No!”

Floating in the air, the monkey
twisted and looked back at Gal-
braith, a look of total innocence.
Then, with a flick of his tail he
turned around and reached for the
carrot.

Milburn caught the monkey’s feet
and bashed its head against a beam.
Galbraith screamed. The monkey’s
body jerked once like a galvanized
frog, and something like a chicken’s

THE LAST THOUSAND MILES

gizzard bulged from the smashed
skull.

The captain looked at the monkey
— made sure it was dead — and tossed
it into the air lock. “Space him,” he
said to the man inside.

Galbraith flung himself at the cap-
tain. His face was twisted with pain
and his eyes were frantic with angry
tears. “Why did you do that?” he
cried. "He wasn’t hurting anybody.
He wasn’t hurting anybody. Why’d
you do that?”

• His fist flailed uselessly on Mil-
burn’s chest and shoulders.

Milburn fended him off. "Shut
up.” he growled.

He turned to go away — turned so
no one could see his face. “I loved
that monk,” he murmured bitterly.
"As much as you did."

The ship was ready. The crew had
finished coating its skin with a two-
inch sheath of the black plaster. It
would burn away when the Jove hit
atmosphere, but the ship itself would
be protected from the awful heat of
friction with the air. Time after
time, the Jove would have to skin
through the thin upper fringes of
the atmosphere and coast out again
into space to cool its glowing skin
— until finally its terrible plunge was
slowed and it would be safe to ven-
ture farther down — toward home.

After each passage, as soon as the
ship had cooled, a fresh coat of the
black plaster would have to be put
on. The supply from the orbitbase
wouldn’t last long. Sherman won-
dered if it was enough. Cold figures

63

said it was — -his private fears said
no.

Inside the Jove, there was very
little left between the pile’s shield
and the forward radars. It was like
a great cave, its spherical walls
braced and counterbraced by thick,
stiff beams.

The men wore their spacesuits.
The air had been let out of the ship,
and of the air lock only the outer
door remained. The astrodome cover
was down, and the transparent dome
itself had been removed. Whatever
observations Sherman had to make,
he would make from the air-lock
door.

And it was dark, and full of deep,
thick shadows. The power generator
had been jettisoned, and most of
the lighting fixtures and circuits.
Only the emergency generator car-
ried on. It was enough to power the
controls and the instruments and
the necessary forward radar.

It was going to be a long, fearful
ride. The atmosphere — so placid in
appearance, and so sweet in recollec-
tions of warm nights under the stars
— was full of terrors. Its turbulence
was as unpredictable and savage as
disaster. It could suck a ship to its
doom in an instant.

Sherman remembered, as if it was
only a moment ago, the training
officer who had said to him: "Hit
the night side when you can and the
day side when you have to. The twi-
light zones are suicide. But how-
ever you hit the air, don’t forget to
pray."

Sherman hadn’t drought much

about prayers for a long time. But
he was thinking of them new.

The captain’s voice sounded crisply
in his helmet from the speaker at
the back of his neck. "Ready,
Roger?’’

It was like the voice of his con-
science, speaking behind him, where
he couldn’t see —

"As ready as I’ll ever be,” Sher-
man said without eagerness. He hesi-
tated. "You still want to go through
with it?”

"We are going through with it,”
Milburn declared.

"I’ll try,” Sherman promised. He
said it stubbornly. "I don’t know if
I can do it, but I’ll try.”

"I know you will.”

"I didn’t try, that other time. I
didn’t try.”

"Forget about the' other time.”
Somewhere behind him, the cap-
tain and the men waited, their backs
against the bare lead shielding of
the pile — waiting for him to feed
the water into the pile and drive the
ship down from its orbit, toward
death or toward home.

The instrument dials glowed
softly. He read them again. Skin
temperature low. Pile hot — far over
in the red. He couldn’t help that.
It had to be hot.

. . . Acceleration zero. Pumps
zero. Line of flight steady. Radar
screen blank. Time passing —

The controls — pumps, pile, gyro,
jet vanes — glowing each with its
own distinct color, all equally in
reach of his fingertips. He held him-

64

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

self stiffly, resisting the urge to go
ahead and get it over with.

"What’re you waiting for?” Mil-
burn rapped impatiently.

“Five minutes." He almost twisted
to give the answer back over his
shoulder, forgetting the captain
spoke through his suit radio. He
glanced back at the time, "Four and
a half,” he said.

It was the worst five minutes he
ever lived through. Everything was
in his hands, to make the best of it
or the worst of it. At best, the Jove
would crash-land somewhere in the
great wastes of the wide Pacific; at
the worst, the Jove would streak
through Earth’s upper atmosphere,
burning bright for a moment like a
falling star.

The minutes counted off, and then
the seconds. Sherman ached for
water in his dry, tight throat. He
held his hands steady and forced
his eyes to watch the time turn
around the clock. The pointer was
gallingly slow.

He started the pumps, and when
they were going good and the last
few seconds flicked into the past, he
fed the water to them. The Jove
slammed at his back, and drove hard.
His sight blurred.

When he could see, he watched
the acceleration and the time, and
abruptly he choked the pumps. The
Jove lurched inert.

"How does it look?” Milburn’s
voice barked out of the radio
speaker.

"I’ll have to figure,” Sherman

called. He opened the instrument
panel and tore out the graph, won-
dering why a man in a suit auto-
matically raised his voice. But then
he was too busy to think about it.

He read the graph quickly. His
practiced eye approximated it,
leveled it, squeezed it dry of mean-
ing. He turned it over and scratched
figures on the back.

He went down to the air-lock door
and took observations. He went back
and checked his figures.

"We need more weight in the
five o’clock position,” he reported.
"Move all the men you can. We’re
way off balance.”

"Right,” Milburn said gruffly.
And to the men: "You heard what
he said. Move.”

Looking back, Sherman saw the
shadowy movements of spacesuited
men in the dark. He touched the
controls, shifting the gyro to a new
setting. The Jove wobbled and held
steady.

"Weight redistributed,” Milburn
reported.

"Thanks,” Sherman said. "Stand
by for course correction.” He fired a
brief blast. The Jove drove forward
horribly. Then abruptly everything
was weightless again.

He went down and took more star
sights. "On orbit, captain,” he re-
ported finally. And then, "We’ve got
to drop more.”

"Why didn’t you say so sooner?”
Milburn demanded.

"Course correction came first, sir,”
Sherman explained.

THE LAST THOUSAND MILES

65

"There's nothing left to drop,”
Milburn said.

"There’s got to be something,”
Sherman insisted. He opened the -in-
strument panel and tore out the
graphing equipment. Without it, the
job would be harder, but it had to
be . done. Blue sparks blazed as he
ripped wires loose, but he ignored
them. His spacesuit gloves protected
his hands.

"Captain.” It was Jim Royce. "I
have Earth on the radio. They say
is we can wait fifteen months, they’ll
have a ship built to come get us.

Milburn swore. "We couldn’t
have lasted another five,” he said
disgustedly. "We told them that
once.”

"What shall I tell them, sir?”

"Tell them — ” Milburn began
angrily, and stopped.

"Tell them,” he repeated deliber-
ately, "we expected them to be here
— up here waiting for us. We’re not
putting our trust in them again. We’ll
make it home by our own selves. Tell
them to look out below. We’re com-
ing down.”

"Yes, sir. I’ll tell them. Just like
that.”

"And Jim — ”

"Yes, sir?”

"When you get done telling them,
tear the thing put and dump it. It
weighs too damn much.”

"But how will they find us if we
don’t have the radio?” Royce pro-
tested.

"To hell with the radio,” Mil-
burn barked. "We’ve got to get our
skins down.”

66

"Yes, sir.”

If they said anything after that,
they’d switched their sets to another
wave length because Sherman didn’t
hear any more. But later he saw men
near the air-lock door, shoving
masses of radio equipment into
space.

"How much more must we
drop?” the captain demanded later.

Sherman checked his figures. "At
least another thousand pounds,” he
reported.

"What about it, Scott?” Milburn
asked the ship’s engineer on the
same wave length. "Can we trim any
more edge off the shield?”

"We’ve taken as much as we can,”
Scott Riemer said.

"What about the oxygen? Can we
spare any?”

"It’s figured to the bone — bare
minimums, sir.”

"What about exhausted bottles?”

"We’re dumping them as soon as
they’re empty,” the engineer said.

"Can you think of anything?” the
captain asked desperately.

"There’s just plain nothing left,”
Scott Riemer said.

“Organize search parties,” Mil-
burn ordered. "Search the ship.
Every inch. There’s got to be some-
thing.”

"When they find it, how do they
pry it loose?” the engineer wanted
to know. "We dumped all the
tools.”

"I don’t give a damn how they
do it,” Milburn snarled. "We’ve got
to trim ship.”

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

They found bits here and there.
Nothing weighed much, but it added
up. Most of the men had their suit
radios ripped out and thrown into
space. Everyone had the magnetic
soles of his boots peeled off. The
electrical circuits in the controls were
traced, and the safety fuses were
taken out.

It was still a long way from
enough. "There’s got to be some-
thing else,” Sherman insisted des-
perately. "If there isn’t, we’ll never
make it.”

"Where do we find it?” Riemer
asked hopelessly. "We’ve searched
everywhere.”

Milburn whirled around suddenly.
"What about the pile?” he de-
manded.

"We can’t even go near it,”
Riemer protested. "It’s running full
power. The radiation would kill us.”

"Like hell we can’t go near it,”
Milburn snapped. "If we don’t get
the weight, we’re dead men anyway.”

"It’s running full power, sir,”
Riemer repeated. "There isn’t any
weight in it going to waste.”

"What about the damper rods?”
Milburn argued. He turned to Sher-
man. "They’re practically all the way
out, aren’t they?”

"Most of them,” Sherman ad-
mitted. "But —

The captain brushed past him,
heading for the access hole. The
hatch cover had been taken long ago.
It waited for him, open, like a dark
mouth.

Riemer tried to stop him. "But
the radiation,” he protested. "There

THE LAST THOUSAND MILES

is no shield down there. It’s deadly.”
"I won’t be long,” Milburn said
roughly. He shoved Riemer out of
his way. "I’m going down there.”
Before Riemer could catch him,
he was halfway through the access
hole. "Stay back,” Milburn ordered
him. "This is my party. No use two
of us getting a dose."

"You’re a fool,” Riemer told him.
The captain was out of sight now,
but his voice still came through the
radios. "Somebody has to do it,” he
growled. "Better get away from
here. When I bring this stuff out of
here, it’s going to be hot.”

He whistled. "Hey! There’s a lot
of stuff down here.”

. He was at it a long time, prying
things loose and towing them out
to the door into space. Sherman went
back to the controls and waited
there. Finally, Milburn was done. He
gave Sherman a weight report.

"How do you feel, sir?” Sherman
asked him.

"Sweaty,” Milburn said. He was
trying to sound hearty, but he only
sounded tired. "I haven’t worked
this hard in years.”

For a moment, then, there was
only the sound of his breathing in
the radio. Then: "How much longer
do we have?”

Sherman checked his time. "An
hour forty-five,” he reported.
"What’s the weight look like?”
Sherman looked at his figures.
"It’s still not too good,” he ad-
mitted unhappily. "We’re still about
two hundred pounds over.”

"I see,” Milburn said. He said it

67

as if he was weighing a decision.
"All right,” he said grimly. ''Take
command.”

For an instant, Sherman didn’t
understand. "Captain, what — ?”

"Take command,” the captain re-
peated harshly. "And don’t forget
to shut the door.”

Sherman unstrapped from the
pilot seat. "No!” he shouted. "We’ll
take a chance. Maybe I can do it. At
least I can try!”

He rushed to the door, but he
was too late. The door was open and
Earth was there before him, so
bright it hurt his eyes. And sil-
houetted against the blue sea below
was the shape of a man in a space-
suit, drifting slowly away from the
ship.”

"Bill!” Sherman cried. "Captain!”

The man out there waved a clumsy
hand. "Not so loud. I can hear you,”
he said through the radio. "You
don’t need me now. You can get the
ship down by yourself if you’ll try
... if you don’t whine, about it.
I picked up too much radiation, any-
way.”

"But you can’t — ” Sherman pro-
tested.

"Take command,” the captain or-
dered. "And shut that door. I’m
getting sick of looking at it. Take
her down, Roger.”

Sherman could only stare at him
blankly. It was a long time before he
found his voice. "I think I can do
•it, sir,” he said.

Milburn was getting smaller as he

drifted away from the ship. "I know
you can,” he said firmly.

Sherman thought about Ellis. And
Blair. "I’ll try,” he promised. "I’ll
try.”

"You’d better,” snapped Milburn,
and snapped off his radio.

Sherman got the door closed and
locked. He went back to the controls
and checked the instruments again.
Everything was running fine.

They had enough water for the
weight they were carrying. The ship
was trim and on orbit. With a little
luck and a lot of skill, he’d do all
right,

He’d always had the skill, and
now, for the first time in a long
time, he felt lucky again. As if de-
termination by itself was enough to
carry him through.

He launched the scout projectiles.
Six neat little pips popped onto the
radar screen ahead of the ship. He
watched them. Shifts in their flight
paths would warn him of dangerous
turbulence when the ship hit air.

The tough job was still ahead of
him. He still had to jockey the ship
down through the atmosphere, and
one slip or oversight would mean
disaster. But it didn’t matter.

He’d promised, and by God, he’d
try. That was the important thing.
He’d never yet failed at anything he
tried to do. He’d do all right. All
he ever had to do was try.

The Jove plunged on toward
home.

THE END

68

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

CLERICAL

ERROR

The essence of getting Top
Security clearance is, of course,
a perfect record of absolute,
undeviating orthodoxy. How,
then, do you get the necessary
unorthodox, original mind in
to work on a totally unortho-
dox problem. . . . ?

BY MARK CLIFTON

Illustrated by Freas

The case of David Storm came to
the attention of Dr. K. Heidrich
Kingston when Dr. Ernest Moss,
psychiatrist in charge of the Q Secu-
rity wing of the government work-
ers’ mental hospital, recommended
lobotomy. The recommendation was
on the lead-off sheet in Storm’s medi-
cal history file. It was expressed more
in the terms of a declaration of in-
tention than a request for permission.

"I had a little trouble in getting
this complete file, doctor,” Miss
Verity said, as she laid it on his desk.
"The fact is Dr. Moss simply brought
in the recommendation and asked me
to put your initials on it so he could
go ahead. I told him that I was still
just your secretary, and hadn’t re-

CLERICAL ERROR

69

placed you yet as Division Adminis-
trator.”

Kingston visualized her aloof, al-
most unfriendly eyes and the faint
sarcasm of her "dipped speech as she
respectfully told off Dr. Moss in the
way an old time nurse learns to put
doctors in their place, unmistakable
but not quite insubordinate. He knew
Miss Verity well; she had been with
him for twenty years; they under-
stood one another. His lips twitched
with a wry grin of appreciation. He
looked up at her as she stood beside
his desk, waiting for his reaction.

"I gather he’s testing the strength
of my order that I must personally
approve all lobotomies," Kingston
commented dryly.

"I’m quite certain the staff already
knows your basic opposition to the
principle of lobotomy, doctor,” she
answered him formally. ''You made
it quite clear in an article you wrote
several years ago, May 1958, to be
exact, wherein you stated — •”

"Yes, yes, I know,” he interrupted,
and quoted himself from the article,
" 'The human brain is more than a
mere machine to be disconnected if
the attending psychiatrist just doesn’t
happen to like the way it operates.’
I still feel that way, Miss Verity.”

"I’m not questioning your medical
or moral judgment, doctor,” she an-
swered, with a note of faint reproof,
“merely your tactical. At the time
you alienated a very large block of
the profession, and they haven’t for-
gotten it. Psychiatrists are particular-
ly touchy about any public question
of their omnipotent right and right-

70

ness. In view of our climb to power,
that was a tactical error. I also feel
the issuance of this order, so soon
after taking over the administration
of this department was a bit prema-
ture. Dr. Moss said he was not ac-
customed to being treated like an
intern. He merely expressed what the
whole staff is thinking, of course.”

"So he’s the patsy the staff is using
to test my authority,” Kingston
mused. "He is in complete charge
of the Q. S. wing. None of the rest
of us, not even I, have the proper
Security clearances to go into that
wing, because we might hear the
poor demented fellow^ mumbling
secrets which are too important for
us to know.”

"You’ll have to admit they’ve set
a rather neat trap, doctor,” Miss
Verity said. A master of tactics, her-
self, she could admire an excellent
stroke of the opposition. "Without
a chance to see the patient and make
a personal study, you can’t very well
override the recommendations of the
psychiatrist in charge. You’d be the
laughingstock of the entire profes-
sion if you tried it. You can’t see
the patient because I haven’t been
able to get Q. S. clearance for you,
yet. And you can’t ignore the Security
program, because that’s a sacred cow
which no one dares question.”

It was a clear summation, but
Kingston knew she was also reprov-
ing him for haying laid himself open
to such a trap. She had advised
against the order and he had insisted
upon it anyway.

He pushed himself back from his
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

desk and got to his feet. He was not
a big man, but he gave the impres-
sion of solid strength as he walked
over to the window of his office. He
looked out through the window and
down the avenue toward various
governmental office buildings which
lined the street as far as he could see.
His features were strong and serene,
and, with his shock of prematurely
white hair, gave him the character-
istic look of a governmental admin-
istrator.

''I’ve not been in this government
job every long,” he said, as much to
the occupants of the buildings down
the street as to her, "but I’ve learned
one thing already. When you don’t
want to face up to the consequences
of a bad decision, you just promise
to make an investigation.” He turned
around and faced his secretary. "Tell
Dr. Moss,” he said, "that I'll make
an investigation of the . . . who is
it? . . . the David Storm case.”

Miss Verity looked as if she want-
ed to say something more, then
clamped her thin lips shut. But at the
door, leading out to her own office,
she changed her mind.

"Doctor,” she said with a mixture
of exasperation and curiosity, "sup-
pose you do find a way to make effec-
tive intercession in the David Storm
case? After all, he’s nobody. He’s
just another case. Suppose you are
able to get another psychiatrist as-
signed to the case. Suppose Dr. Moss
is wrong about him being an incura-
ble, and you really get a cure. What
have you gained?”

"I’ve got to start somewhere, Miss

Verity,” Kingston said gently, with-
out resentment. "Have you had a re-
cent look at the sharply rising inci-
dent of disturbance among these
young scientists in government work,
Miss Verity? The curing of Storm,
if that could happen, might be only
incidental, true — but it would be a
start. I’ve got some suspicions about
what’s causing this rising incident.
The Storm case may help to resolve
them, or dismiss them. It’s consider-
ably more than merely making my
orders stick. I’ve got to start some-
where. It might as well be with
Storm.”

"Very well, doctor,” she answered,
barely opening her lips. Obviously
this was not the way she would have
handled it. Even a cursory glance
through the Storm file had shown
her he was a person of no conse-
quence. Even if Dr. Kingston suc-
ceeded, there was no tactical or pub-
licity value to be gained from it. If
Storm were a big-name scientist, then
the issue would be different. A cause
celebre could be made of it. But as
it was, well, facing facts squarely,
who would care? One way or the
other ?

The case history on David Storm
was characteristic of Dr. Moss. It was
the meticulous work of a thorough
technician who had mastered the
primary level of detachment. It re-
corded the various treatments and
therapies which Dr. Moss had tried.
It reported sundry rambling conver-
sations, incoherent rantings and com-
plaints of David Storm.

CLERICAL ERROR

71

And it lacked comprehension.

Kingston, as he plowed through
the dossier, felt the frustrated irrita-
tion, almost despair, of the creative
administrator who must depend upon
technicians who lack any basic feel-
ing for the work they do. The work
was all technically correct, but in the
way a routine machinist would grind
a piece of metal to the precise meas-
urements of the specs.

"How does one go about criticizing
a man for his total lack of any crea-
tive intuition?” Kingston mumbled
angrily at the report. "He leaves no
loopholes for technical criticism, and,
in his frame of thinking, if you tried
to go beyond that you’d merely be
picking on vague generalities.”

The work was all technically cor-
rect. There wasn’t even a clerical
error in it.

A vague idea, nothing more than
a slight feeling of a hunch, stirred
in Kingston’s mind. In some of the
arts you could say to a naan, "Well,
yes, you’ve mastered all the technical-
ities, but, man, you’re just not an
artist.” But he couldn’t tell Dr. Moss
he wasn’t a doctor, because Dr. Moss
had a diploma which said he was.
Men with minds of clerks could only
understand error on a clerical level.

He tried to make the idea more
vivid in his mind, but it refused to
jell. It simply remained a commen-
tary. The case history told a com-
plete story, but David Storm never
emerged from it as a human being.
He remained nothing more than a
case history. Kingston could get no
feeling of the substance of the man.

72

The report might as well have dealt
with lengths of steel or gallons of
chemical.

In a sort of self-defense, Kingston
called in Miss Verity, away from her
complex of administrative duties, and
resorted to a practice they had estab-
lished together, years before.

He had started his technique with
simple gestalt exercises in empathy;
such as the deliberate psychosomatic
stimulation of pain in one’s own
arm to better understand the pain in
some other person’s broken arm.
Through the years it had been pos-
sible to progress to the higher gestalt
empathies of personality identifica-
tion with a patient. Like other dark
areas of the unknown in sciences,
there had been many ludicrous mis-
takes, some danger, and discourage-
ment amounting to despair. But in
the long run he had found a tech-
nique for a significant increase in his
effectiveness as a psychiatrist.

The expression on Miss Verity’s
face, when she sat down at the side
of his desk with her notebook, was
interesting. They were both big
wheels now, he and she, and she re-
sented taking time out from her con-
trol over hundreds of lesser wheels.
Yet she was a part of the pattern
of empathy. Her hard and unyield-
ing core of practicality, realism, pro-
vided a background to contrast, in
sharp relief, to the patterns of mad-
ness. Obscurely, she derived a pleas-
ure from this contrast; and a nostal-
gic pleasure, also, from a return
to the old days when he had been
a young and struggling psychiatrist

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

and she, his nurse, had believed in
him enough to stick by him. Kings-
ton wondered if Miss Verity really
knew what she did want out of life.
He pushed the speculation aside and
began his dictation.

As a student, David Storm represented
the all too common phenomenon of a
young man who takes up the study of a
science because it is the socially accepted
thing to do, rather than because he had
the basic instincts of the true scientist.

Kingston felt himself slipping
away into the familiar sensation syn-
drome of true empathy with his sub-
ject. As always, he had to play a
dual role. It was insufficient to enter
into the other person’s mind and
senses, feel and see as he felt and
saw. No, at the same time he must
also reconstruct the individual’s life
pattern to show the conflicts inherent
in that framework which would later
lead him into such frustrations as to
mature into psychosis.

In the Storm case this was par-
ticularly important. A great deal more
than just an obscure patient was at
stake. By building up a typical
framework of conflict, using Storm
as merely the focal point, he might
be better able to understand this
trend which was proving so danger-
ous to young men in science. And
since our total culture had become
irrevocably tied to progress in sci-
ence, he might be better able to
prevent a blight from destroying that
culture.

His own office furniture faded
away. He was there; Miss Verity was
there; the precise and empty notes

CLERICAL ERROR

of Dr. Moss were there in front of
him; but, to him, these things became
shadows, and in the way a motion
picture or television screen takes over
the senses of reality, he went back
to the college classrooms where David
Storm had received instruction.

It was unfortunate that the real fire
of science did not burn in any of his
college instructors, either. Instead, they
were also the all too common phenom-
enon of small souls who had grasped
frantically at a few "proved" facts, and
had clung to these with the desperate
tenacity of drowning men in seas of
chaos. "You cannot cheat science,” these
instructors were fond of saying with much
didactic positiveness. "If you will follow
the procedures we give you, exactly, your
experiment will work. That is proof we
are right!”

"If it works, it must be right” was so
obviously true to Storm that he simply
could not have thought of any reason
or way to doubt it. He graduated without
ever having been handed the most neces-
sary tool in all science, skepticism, much
less instructed in its dangers and its wise
uses. For there are true-believer fanatics
to -be found in science, also.

Under normal conditions, Storm would
have found some mediocre and unim-
portant niche he deserved. For some
young graduates in science the routine
technician's job in a laboratory or shop
is simply an opening wedge, a foot on
the first rung of his ladder. For David
Storm's kind, that same job is a haven,
a lifetime of small but secure wage. Un-
der such conditions the conflicts, leading
to psychosis, would not have occurred.

But these are not normal times. We
have science allied to big government,
and controlled by individuals who have
neither the instincts nor the knowledge
of what science really is. This has given
birth to a Security program which places
more value upon a stainless past and an
innocuous mind than upon real talent

73

and ability. It was the socially acceptable
and the secure thing for Storm to seek
work in government-controlled research.
With his record ef complete and un-
questioning conformity, it was as inevi-
table as sunrise that he should be favored.

It was as normal as gravity that his
Security ratings should increase into the
higher echelons of secrecy as he con-
tinued to prove complaisant, and, there-
fore, trustworthy. The young man with
a true instinct for science is a doubter,
a dissenter, and, therefore, a trouble
maker. He, therefore, cannot be trusted
with real importance. Under this condi-
tion, it was as natural as rain that when
a time came for someone to head up a
research section, Storm was the only man
available.

It was after this promotion into the
ranks of the Q. S. men that the falsity
of the whole framework began to make
itself felt. He had proved to be a good
second man, who always did what he
was told, who followed instructions faith-
fully and. to the letter. But now he found
himself in a position where there were
no ready-made instructions for him to
follow.

Kingston took up the Moss report
and turned some pages to find the
exact reference he wanted. Miss
Verity remained passively poised,
ready to speed into her shorthand
notes again. Kingston found the
sheet he wanted and resumed his
dictation.

Storm got no satisfaction from his
section administrator. "You’re the ex-
pert,” his boss told him. "You're sup-
posed to tell us the answers, not ask us
for them.” His tentative questions of
other research men got him no satisfac-
tion. Either they were in the same boat
as he, and as confused, or they weren't
talking to this new breed who called
himself a. research scientist.

But one old fellow did talk, a little.

74

He asked Storm, with disdain, if he ex-
pected the universe to furnish him with
printed instructions on how it was put
together. He commented, acidly, that in
his opinion we were handing the fate of
our civilization to a bunch of cookbook
technicians.

Storm was furious, of course. He de-
bated with himself as to whether he
should, as a good loyal citizen, report
the old fellow to the loyalty board. But
he didn't. Something stopped him, some-
thing quite horrible — a thought all his
own. This man was a world-famous
scientist. He had once been a professor
of science at a great university. Storm had
been trained to believe what professors
said. What if this one were right?

The doubts that our wise men have
already found all the necessary right an-
swers, which should have disturbed him
by the time he was a sophomore in high
school, began now to trouble him. The
questions he should have begun to ask
by the time he was a freshman in college
began to seep through the tiny cracks that
were opening in his tight little framework
of inadequate certainties.

Kingston looked up from the re-
port in his hands; thought for a mo-
ment; flipped a few pages of the
dossier; failed to find what he want-
ed; turned back a couple of pages;
and skimmed down the closely writ-
ten record of Storm’s demented rav-
ings. "Oh yes, here it is," he said,
when he found the reference.

It was about that time that Storm be-
gan to think about something else he
would have preferred to forget. It had
been one of those beer-drinking and
pipe-smoking bull sessions which act
as a sort of teething ring upon which
college men exercise their gums in prep-
aration for idea maturity. The guy who
was dominating the talking already had
a reputation for being a radical; and
Storm had listened with the censor’s self-

ASTOUNDIN G SCIENCE FICTION

assurance that it was all right for him
to listen so he would be better able to
protect others, with inferior minds and
weaker wills, from such exposures.

"The great danger to our culture,” this
fellow was holding forth, "doesn’t come
from the nuclear bomb, the guided mis-
sile, germ warfare, or even internal sub-
version. Granted there’s reason why our
culture should endure, there’s a much
greater danger, and one, apparently quite
unexpected.

"Let’s take our diplomatic attitudes
and moves as a cross section of the best
thinking our culture, as a whole, can
produce. For surely here, at this oritical
level, the finest minds, skilled in the
science of statecraft, are at work. And
there is no question but that our best
is no higher than a grammar-school level.
A kid draws a line with his toe across
the sidewalk and dares, double dares, his
challenger to step across it. 'My father
can lick your father’ is not removed, in
substance, from 'My air force can lick
your air force.’ What is our Security
program but the childish chanting of
'I’ve got a secret ! I’ve got a secret !’ ? Add
to that the tendency to assemble a gang
so that one can feel safer when he talks
tough, the tendency to indiscriminate
name calling, the inability to think in
other terms than 'good guys' and ‘bad
guys.’ Here you have the classical picture
of the grammar-school level of thinking
— and an exact parallel with our di-
plomacy.

"Now, sure, it’s true that one kid of
grammar-school mental age can pretty
well hold his own with another of his
own kind and strength. But here’s the
real danger. He doesn’t stand a chance
if he comes up against a mature adult.
What if our opponent, whoever he may
be, should grow up before we do ? There’s
the real danger!”

Storm had considered the diatribe
ridiculous at the time, and agreed with
some of the other fellows that the guy
should be locked up, or at least kicked
off the campus. But now he began to

wonder about certain aspects which he
had simply overlooked before. "Consider
the evidence, gentlemen,” one of his
instructors had repeated, like a parrot,
at each stage of some experiment. Only
now it occurred to Storm that the old
boy had invariably selected, with consid-
erable care, the particular evidence he
wanted them to consider.

With equal care our statecraft had pre-
sented us with the evidence that over
there, in the enemy territory, science was
forced to follow the party line or get
itself purged. And the party line was
totally false and wrong.. Therefore their
notions of science must be equally wrong.
And you can’t cheat science. If a thing
is wrong it won’t work. Yet the evidence
also showed that they, too, had successful
nuclear fission, guided missiles, and all
the rest.

This led Storm into another cycle of
questions. What parts of the evidence
could a man elect to believe, and what
interpretations of that evidence might he
dispute and still remain a totally loyal
citizen, still retain his right to highest
Security confidence? This posed another
problem, for he was still accustomed to
turning to higher authority for instruc-
tion. But of whom could he ask such
questions as these? Not his associates,
for they were as wary of him as he of
them. In such an atmosphere where it
becomes habitual for a man to guard
his tongue against any and all slips, there
is an automatic complex of suspicions
built up to freeze out all real exchange
of ideas.

Every problem has a solution. He
found the only solution open to him.
He went on asking such questions of
himself. But, as usual, the solution to one
problem merely opened the door to a
host of greater ones. The very act of
admitting, openly acknowledging, such
questions to himself, and knowing he
dared not ask them of anyone else, filled
him with an overpowering sense of fur-
tive shame and guilt. It was an axiom
of the Security framework that you were

CLERICAL ERROR

75

either totally loyal, or you were poten-
tially a subversive. Had he any right to
keep his Security ratings when these
doubts were a turmoil in his mind?

Through the months, especially during
the nights, as he lay in miserable sleep-
lessness, he pondered these obvious flaws
in his own nature, turning them over and
over like a squirrel in a cage. Then, one
night, there came a whole series of ques-
tions that were even more terrifying.

What if it were not he, but the culture,
which contained the basic flaw? Who,
in or out of science, is so immutably
right that he can pass judgment on what
man is meant to know and what he may
never question ? If we are not to ask
questions beyond accepted dogma, be it
textbook or statecraft, from ' where is
man’s further knowledge and advance-
ment to come? What if these questions
which filled him with such maddening
doubts were the very ones most necessary
to answer ? Indeed, what if our very
survival depended upon just such ques-
tions and answers? Would he then be
giving his utmost in loyalty if he did
not ask them ?

The walls of his too narrow framework
of thinking had broken away, and he
felt himself drowning in a flood of
dilemmas he was unprepared to solve.
When a man, in a dream, finds his life
in deadly peril an automatic function
takes over — the man wakes up. There is
also an automatic function which takes
over when the problems of reality become
a deadly peril.

Storm withdrew from reality.

Kingston was silent for a moment,
then his consciousness returned to the
surroundings of his office, and the
desk in front of him. He looked over
at Miss Verity.

"Well, now,” he said. "I think
we begin to understand our young
man a little better.”

"But are you sure his conflict is
typical?” Miss Verity asked.

"Consider the evidence,” Kingston
said with deliberate irony. "Science
can progress, even exist, only where
there is free exchange of ideas, and
minds completely open to variant
ideas. When by law, or social custom,
we forbid this, we stop scientific de-
velopment. Consider the evidence!”
he said again. "There is already a
great deal of it to show that our
science is beginning to go around in
circles, developing the details of the
frameworks already acceptable, but
not reaching out to reveal new and
totally unexpected frameworks.”

"I’ll type this up, in case you want
to review it,” Miss Verity answered
dryly. She did not go along with him,
at all, in these flights of fancy. Cer-
tainly she saw no tactical advantage
to be gained from taking such atti-
tudes. On the contrary, if he didn’t
learn to curb his tongue better, all
she had worked so hard to gain for
the both of them could be threatened.

Kingston watched her reactions
with an inward smile. It apparently
had never occurred to her that his
ability in gestalt empathy could be
directed toward her.

There might be quite a simple
solution to the Storm matter. Too
many government administrators and
personnel had come to regard an act
under general Security regulations to
be a dictum straight from Heaven.
It was possible that Storm's section
had already written him off as a
total loss in their minds, and no one

76

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

had taken the trouble to get him
declassified. Kingston felt he should
explore that possibility first.

He made an appointment to see
Logan Maxfield, Chief Administrator
of the section where Storm had
worked.

His first glance, when he walked
into Maxfield’s office, put a damper
on his confidence. Here was a man
who was more of a politician than
a scientist, probably a capable enough
administrator within his given boun-
daries, but the strained cautiousness
of his greeting told Kingston he
would not take any unusual risks to

his own safety and reputation. He
belonged to that large and ever grow-
ing class of job holders in govern-
ment whose safety lies in preserving
the status quo, who would desper-
ately police and defend things as they
are, for any change might be a threat.

It would take unusual tactics to jar
him out of his secure rightness in
attitude. Kingston was prepared to
employ unusual tactics.

"Storm has been electrocuted,” he
said quietly, "with a charge just bare-
ly short of that used on murderers.
Not once, of course, but again and
again. Then, also, we’ve stunned him

CLERICAL ERROR

77

over and over with hypos jabbed
down through his skull into his brain.
We’ve sent him into numerous bone-
crushing and muscle-tearing spasms
with drugs. But,” he sighed heavily,
"he’s obstinate. He refuses to be
cured by these healing therapies.”

Maxfield’s face turned a shade
whiter, and his eyes fixed uncertain-
ly on his pudgy hands lying on top
of his desk. He looked over toward
his special water cooler, as if he
longed for a drink, but he did not
get out of his chair. A silence grew.
It was obvious he felt called upon
to make some comment. He tried to
make it jocular, man to man.

"Of course I don’t know anything
about the science of psychiatry, doc-
tor,” he said at last, "but in the physi-
cal sciences we feel that methods
which don’t work may not be entire-
ly scientific.”

“Man,” Kingston exploded with
heavy irony, "you imply that psychia-
try isn’t an exact science? Of course
it is a science! Why, man, we have
all sorts of intricate laboratories, and
arrays of nice shiny tools, and flash-
ing lights on electronic screens, and
mechanical pencils drawing jagged
lines on revolving drums of paper,
and charts and graphs, and statistics.
And theory? Why, man, we’ve got
more theory than you ever dreamed
of in physical science! Of course it’s
a science. Any rational man has to
agree that the psychiatrist is a sci-
entist. We ought to know. We are
the ones who define rationality!”

Maxfield could apparently find no
answer to that bit of reasoning.

78

Along with many others he saw no
particular fallacy in defining a thing
in terms of itself.

"What do you want me to do?”
he asked finally.

"Here’s the problem,” Kingston
answered, in the tone of one admin-
istrator to another. "It is unethical
for one doctor to question the tech-
niques of another doctor, so let’s put
it this way. Suppose you had a math-
ematician in your department who
took up a sledge hammer and delib-
erately wrecked his calculating ma-
chines because they would not an-
sweb a question he did not knoiv
how to ask. Then failing to get the
answer, suppose he recommended
just disconnecting what was left of
the machines and abandoning them.
What would you do?”

"I think I’d get myself another
mathematician,” Maxfield said with
a sickly attempt at lightness.

"Well, now that’s a problem, too,”
Kingston answered easily. "I’m not
questioning the methods of Dr.
Moss, and obviously his attitudes are
the right ones, because he’s the only
available psychiatrist who had been
cleared to treat all these fellows you
keep sending over to us under Q. S.
secrecy. But there’s a way out of
that,” he said with the attitude of
a salesman on television who will
now let you in on the panacea for
all your troubles. "If you lifted the
Security on Storm, then we could
move him to another ward and try
a different kind of therapy. We
might even find a man who did know

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

how to ask the question which would
get the right answer.”

"Absolutely impossible,” Maxfield
said with finality.

"Now look at it this way,” King-
ston said in a tone of reasonableness.
"If Storm just chose to quit his job,
you’d have to declassify him, would-
n’t you?”

"That’s different,” Maxfield said.
“There are proper procedures for
that.”

"I know,” Kingston said, a little
wearily. "The parting interview to
impress him with the need for con-
tinued secrecy, the terrible weight of
knowing that bolt number seventy-
two in motor XYZ has a three eights
thread instead of a five eights. So
why can’t you consider that Storm
has left his job and declassify him
in absentia. Then we could remove
him to an ordinary ward and give him
what may be a more effective treat-
ment. I really don’t think he can en-
dure very much more of his present
therapy.”

Kingston leaned back in his chair
and spoke in a tone of speculation.

“There’s a theory that this treat-
ment isn’t really torture, Mr. Max-
field, because an insane person does-
n’t know what is happening to him.
But I’m afraid that theory is fal-
lacious. I believe the so-called insane
person does know what is happen-
ing, and feels all the exquisite torture
we use in trying to drive the devils
out of his soul.”

"Absolutely impossible,” Maxfield
repeated. "Although you are not a

Q. S. man” — this with a certain
smugness — "I’ll tell you this much.”
He leaned forward and placed his
fingertips together in his most im-
pressive air of administrative delib-
eration. "We have reason to believe
that David Storm was on the trail
of something big. Big, Dr. Kingston.
So big, indeed, that perhaps the very
survival of the nation depends upon
it !”

He hesitated a few seconds, to let
the gravity of his statement sink in.
Then he unlocked a desk drawer and
took out a file folder.

"I had this file sent in when you
made the appointment to see me,” he
explained. "As you no doubt know,
we must have inspectors who are con-
stantly observing our scientists, al-
though unseen, themselves. Here is
a sentence from one of our most
trusted inspectors. 'Subject repeats
over and over, under great emo-
tional stress, to himself, aloud, that
our very survival depends upon his
finding the answers to a series of
questions!’ There, Dr. Kingston,
does that sound like no more than
the knowledge of a three eights
thread on a bolt, No, doctor,” he
answered his own rhetoric, "this can
only mean something of monumen-
tal significance — with the fate of a
world, our world, hanging in the
balance. Now you see why we could-
n’t take chances with declassifying
him !”

Kingston was on the verge of
telling him what the pattern of
Storm’s questions really was, then
better judgment prevailed. First the

CLERICAL ERROR

79

Security board would become more
than a little alarmed that he, a non
Q.S. man, had already learned what
was on Storm’s mind, and pass some
more silly rules trying to put a man’s
mind in solitary confinement. Second,
Maxfield was convinced these ques-
tions must be concerned with some
super gadget, and wouldn’t believe
his revealment of their true nature.
And anyway, what' business does a
scientist have, asking such questions ?
Any sympathy he might have gained
for Storm would be lost. Serves the
fellow right for not sticking strictly
to his slide rules and Bunsen burners !

"Mr. Maxfield,” Kingston said
gravely, patiently. "It is our experi-
ence that a disturbed patient often
considers something entirely trivial
to be of world-shaking importance.
The momentous question Storm feels
he must solve may be no more than
some nonsensical conundrum — such
as why does a chicken cross the road.
It may mean nothing whatever.”

"And then again it may,” Max-
field answered. "We can’t take the
chance. You must remember, doctor,
this statement was overheard and
recorded while Storm was still a sane
man.”

"Before he was committed, you
mean,” Kingston corrected softly.

"At any rate, it must have been
something quite terrible to drive a
man insane, just the thought of it,”
Maxfield argued.

"I’ll not deny that possibility,”
Kingston agreed seriously. "The
questions could have terrified him,

80

and the rest of us, too, if we really
stopped to think about them. Would-
n’t it be worth the risk of say my
own doubtful loyalty to make a
genuine effort to find out what they
were, and deal with them, instead
of torturing him to drive them out
of his mind?”

"I'm not sure I know what you
mean,” Maxfield faltered. This doc-
tor seemed to have the most callous
way of describing beneficial thera-
pies !

"Mr. Maxfield,” Kingston said
with an air of candor, "I’ll let you
in on a trade secret. Up until now
psychiatry has fitted all the descrip-
tions applicable to a cult, and few
indeed applicable to a science. We
try to tailor the mind to fit the theory.
But some of us, even in the field of
psychiatry, are beginning to ask
questions — the first dawn of any sci-
ence. Do you know anything about
psychosomatic medicine?”

"Very little, just an idea of what
it means,” Maxfield answered cau-
tiously.

"Enough,” Kingston conceded.
"You know that the human body-
mind may take on very real symptoms
and pains of an illness as overt ob-
jection to an untenable environment.
Now we are starting to ask the
question: Can it be possible that our
so-called cures, brought about
through electro and drug shock, are
a type of psychosomatic response to
unendurable torture?

"I see a mind frantically darting
from framework to framework, pur-
sued inexorably by the vengeful psy-

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

chiatrist with the implements of tor-
ture in his hands — the mind desper-
ately trying to find a framework
which the psychiatrist will approve
and so slacken the torture. We have
called that a return to sanity. But is
it really anything more than a psy-
chosomatic escape from an impossible
situation ? A compounded withdrawal
from withdrawal?

“As I say, a few of us are begin-
ning to ask ourselves these questions.
But most continue to practice the
cult rituals which can be duplicated
point by point, item by item, with
the rites of a savage witch doctor
attempting to drive out devils from
some poor unfortunate of the tribe.”

From the stricken look on Max-
field’s face, there was no doubt he
had finally scored. The man stood up
as if to indicate he could take no
more. He was distressed by the prob-
lem, so distressed, in fact, that he
obviously wished this psychiatrist
would leave his office and just forget
the whole thing.

"I ... I want to be reasonable,
doctor,” he faltered through trem-
bling lips. "I want to do the right
thing.” Then his face cleared. He saw
a way out. "I'll tell you what I can
do. I'll make another investigation
of the matter!”

“Thank you, Mr. Maxfield,” King-
ston said gravely, without showing
the bitterness of his defeat. “I
thought that is what you might do.”

When he got back to his office,
Kingston learned that Dr. Moss had
not been content merely to lay a

neat little professional trap. His in-
dignation over being thwarted in his
intention to perform a lobotomy on
Storm had apparently got the better
of his judgment. In a rage, he had
insisted upon a meeting with a loy-
alty board at top level. In the avid
atmosphere of Government by In-
formers, they had shown themselves
eager to hear what he might say
against his superior.

But a private review of the Storm
file reminded them of those mysteri-
ous and fearful questions in his de-
ranged mind, questions which might
forever be lost through lobotomy. So
they advised Moss that Dr. King-
ston’s opposition was purely a medi-
cal matter, and did not necessarily
constitute subversion.

In the report of this meeting
which lay on his desk, some clerk
along the way had underscored the
word "necessarily” as if, gently, to
remind him to watch his step in the
future.

"God save our country from the
clerical mind,” he murmured. And
then the solution to his problem be-
gan to unfold for him.

His first step in putting his plan
into operation had all the appear-
ances of being a very stupid move.
It was the first of a series of equally
obvious stupidities, which, in total,
might add up to a solution. For
stupid people are perpetually on
guard against cleverness, but will fall
in with and further a pattern of
stupidity as if they had a natural af-
finity for it.

His first move was to send Dr.

CLERICAL ERROR

81

Moss out to the West Coast to make
a survey of mental hospitals in that
area.

"This memorandum certainly sur-
prised me,” Dr. Moss said curious-
ly, as he came through Kingston’s
office door, waving the paper in his
hand. He seated himself rather tenta-
tively on the edge of a chair, and
looked piercingly across the desk,
to see if he could fathom the ulterior
motives behind the move. "It is true
that my section is in good order, and
my patients can be adequately cared
for by the attendants for a couple
of weeks or so. But that you should
ask me to make the survey of West
Coast conditions for you — ”

He let the statement trail off into
the air, demanding an explanation.

"Why not you?” Kingston asked,
as if surprised by the question.

"I . . . ah . . . feared our little
differences in the . . . ah . . . Storm
matter might prejudice you against
me,” Moss said, with the attitude of
a man laying his cards on the table.
Kingston surmised there were cards
not laid out for inspection also. The
move had two obvious implications.
It could be a bribe, a sort of promo-
tion, to regain Moss’ good will. Or,
more subtly, it could be a threat —
"You see I can transfer you out of
my way, any time I may want to.”

"Oh, the Storm matter,” Kingston
said with some astonishment.
"Frankly, doctor, I hadn’t connected
up the two. I’ve been most impressed
with your attention to detail, and the
fine points of organization. It seemed
to me you were the most logical one

82

on the staff to spot any operational
flaws out there. The fact that you
can confidently leave your section in
the care of your attendants, is proof
of that.”

Moss gave a slight smirk at this
praise, and said nothing.

"Now I’d be a rather poor execu-
tive administrator if I let a minor
difference of professional opinion
stand in the way of the total efficient
organization, wouldn’t I?” Kingston
asked, with an amiable smile.

"Dr. Kingston,” Moss began, and
hesitated. Then he decided to be
frank. "I ... ah ... the staff has
felt that your appointment to this
position was purely political. I begin
to see it might also have been because
of your ability, and your capacity to
rise above small differences of . . .
ah . . . opinion.”

Kingston let that pass. If he hap-
pened to rise a little in the estima-
tion of his staff through these maneu-
vers, that would be simply a side
benefit.

"Now you’re sure I’m not inter-
rupting a course of vital treatment
of your patients. Dr. Moss?” he
asked.

"Most of my patients are totally
and completely incurable, doctor,”
Moss said with finality. "Not that I
don’t keep trying. I do try. I try
everything known to the science of
psychiatry to get them thinking ra-
tionally again. But let’s face it. Most
of them will progress — or regress —
equally well with simple human care.
I fear my orderlies, guards, nurses
regard me as something of a tyrant,”

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

he said with obvious satisfaction.
"And it isn’t likely that in the space
of a couple of weeks they’ll let down
during my absence. You needn’t
worry. I’ll set up the proper meas-
ures.”

Kingston breathed a small sigh of
relief as the man left his office. That
would net Dr. Moss off the scene

O

for a while.

Equally important, but not so easi-
ly accomplished, he must get Miss
Verity away at the same time. And
Miss Verity was anything but stupid.

"Has it occurred to you. Miss
Verity,” he asked with the grin of
a man who has a nice surprise up
his sleeve, "that this month you will
have been with me for twenty-five
years?” It was probably a foolish
question. Miss Verity would know
the years, months, days, hours. Not
for any special reason, except that
she always knew everything down
to the last decimal. The stern lines
of her martinet face did not relax,
but her pale blue eyes showed a
flicker of pleasure that he would re-
member.

"It has been my pleasure to serve
you, doctor,” she said formally. That
formality between them had never
been relaxed, and probably never
would be since both of them wanted
it. It was not an unusual relationship
either in medicine or industry — as if
the man should never become too
apparent through the image of the
executive, lest both parties lose con-
fidence and falter.

"We’ve come a long way in a

quarter of a century,” he said remi-
niscently, "from that little two-room
office in Seattle. And if it weren’t
for you, we might still be there.”
Rigidly he suppressed any tone which
would betray any implication that he
might have been happier remaining
obscure.

"Oh no, doctor,” she said instant-
ly. "A man with your ability — ”

"Ability is not enough,” he cut in.
"Ability has to be combined with
ambition. I didn’t have the ambi-
tion. I simply wanted to learn, to
go on learning perpetually, I sup-
pose. You know how it was before
you came with me. Patients didn’t
pay me. I didn’t check to see what
their bank account or social position
was before I took them on. I was
getting the reputation for being a
poor man’s psychiatrist, before you
took charge of my office and changed
all that.”

"That’s true,” she agreed candidly,
with a small secret smile. "But I
looked at it this way: You were . . .
you are ... a great man dedicated
to the service of humanity. I felt it
would do no harm for the Right
People to know about it. You can
cure a disturbed rich man as easily
as you can cure a poor one. And as
long as your job was to listen to
secrets, they might as well be impor-
tant secrets — those of industrialists,
statesmen, people who really matter.”

She looked about the well ap-
pointed office, and out of the window
toward the great governmental
buildings rising in view, as if to
survey the concrete results of his

CLERICAL ERROR

83

policies in managing his affairs.
Kingston wondered how much of her
ambition had been for him, and how
much for herself. In the strange
hierarchy of castes among govern-
ment workers, she was certainly not
without stature.

That remark about secrets. He
knew her ability to rationalize. He
wondered how much of his phenom-
enal rise, and his position now, was
due to polite and delicate pressures
she had applied in the right places.

"So now I want to do something
I’ve put off too long,” he said, letting
the grin come back on his face. "I
want you to take a month’s vacation,
all expenses paid.”

She half arose out of her chair,
then settled back into it again. He
had never seen her so perturbed.

"I couldn’t do that,” she said with
a rising tone of incredulity. "There
are too many things of importance.
We've just barely got things organ-
ized since taking over this position.
You . . . you . . . why a dozen times
a day there are things coming up
you wouldn’t know how to handle.
You ... I don’t mean to sound
disrespectful, doctor, but . . . well
. . . you make mistakes. A great man,
such as you, well, you live in another
world, and without somebody to
shield you, constantly — ”

She broke off and smiled at him
placatingly. All at once she was a
tyrant mother with an adored son
who has made an independent deci-
sion; a wife with a well broken hus-
band who has unexpectedly asserted
a remnant of the manhood he once

84

had; a career secretary who believes
her boss to be a fool — a woman
whose Security depended upon her
indispensability.

Then her face calmed. Her expres-
sion was easily readable. The accept-
ed more of our culture is that men
exist for the benefit of women. But
they can be stubborn creatures at
times. The often repeated lessons in
the female magazines was that they
can be driven where you want them
to go only so long as they think
they are leading the way there. She
must go cautiously.

"Right now, particularly, I should-
n’t leave,” she said with more com-
posure. "I’m trying, very hard, to
get you cleared for a Q. S. As you
know, the Justice Department has
a rather complete file folder on any-
body in the country of any conse-
quence. They have gone back through
your life. They have interviewed nu-
merous patients you have treated. I
am trying to convince the Loyalty
Board that a psychiatrist must, at
times, make statements to his pa-
tients which he may not necessarily
believe. I am trying to convince them
that the statements of neurotic and
psychotic patients are not necessarily
an indication of a man’s loyalty to
his country.

"Then, too,” she continued with
faint reproach, "you’ve made public
statements questioning the basic
foundations upon which modern psy-
chology is built. You’ve questioned
the value of considering everyone
who doesn’t blend in with the aver-
age norm as being aberrated.”

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

jvA^/vv/l/vv^^ ■- A 1 *^v v'-v» v '

- \ 7W 1

"I still question that,” he said
firmly.

"I know, I know,” she said im-
patiently. "But do you have to say
such things — in public?”

"Well, now, Miss Verity,” he said
reasonably, "if a scientist must shape
his opinions to suit the standards of
the Loyalty Board or Justice Depart-
ment before he is allowed to serve
his country — ”

"They don’t say you are disloyal,
doctor,” she said impatiently. "They
just say: Why take a chance? I’m
campaigning to get the right Impor-
tant People to vouch for you.”

"I think the work of setting up
organization has been a very great
strain on you,” he answered with the
attitude of a doctor toward a patient.
"And there’s a great deal more to
be done. I want to make many
changes. I think you should have
some rest before we undertake it.”
There had been more, much more.
But in the end he had won a partial
victory. She consented to a week’s
vacation. He had to be satisfied with
that. . If Storm were really badly
demented, he could certainly make
little progress in that time. But on
the other hand, he would have ac-

CLERICAL ERROR

85

complished his main purpose. He
would have seen Storm, talked with
him, contaminated him through let-
ting him talk to a non-Q.S. man.

Miss Verity departed for a week's
vacation with her brothers and sisters
and their families — all of whom she
detested.

Kingston did not try to push his
plan too fast. He had a certain
document in mind, and nothing
must be done to call any special
attention to it.

It was the following day after the
simultaneous departure of Dr. Moss
and Miss Verity, in the early after-
noon, that he sat at his desk and
signed a stack of documents in front
of him.

Because of Miss Verity’s martinet
tactics in gearing up the department
to prompt handling of all matters,
the paper which interested him above
all others should be in this stack.

While he signed one routine au-
thorization after another, he grew
conscious that his mind had been
going back over the maneuvers and
interviews he had taken thus far in
the Storm case. The emotional im-
patience at their blind slavery to
proper and safe procedure rekindled
in him, and he found himself signing
at a furious rate. Deliberately he
slowed himself down. In event some-
one should begin wondering at a
series of coincidences at some later
date, his signature must betray no
unusual mood.

It was vital to the success of his
plan that the document go through

86

proper channels for execution as a
completely routine matter. So vital
that, even here, alone in the privacy
of his office, he would not permit
himself to riff down through the
stack to see if the paper which really
mattered had cleared the typing
section.

He felt his hand shaking slightly
at the thought he might have mis-
calculated the mentality of the typists,
that someone might have noticed the
wild discrepancy and pulled the
work sheet he had written out for
further question.

Just how far could a man ' bank
on the pattern of stupidity? If the
document were prematurely discov-
ered, his only hope to escape serious
consequences with the Loyalty Board
was to claim a simple clerical error —
the designation of the wrong form
number at the top of the work sheet.
He could probably -win, before or
after the event, because it would be
Obvious to anyone that a ridiculous
clerical error was the only possible
explanation.

A psychiatrist simply does not
commit himself to be confined as an
insane person.

He lay down his pen, to compose
himself until all traces of any muscu-
lar waver would disappear from his
signature. He tried to reassure him-
self that nothing could have gone
wrong. The girls who filled in the
spaces of the forms were only routine
typists. They had the clerical mind.
They checked the number on the
form with the number on the work
sheet. They dealt with dozens and

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

hundreds of forms, numerically
stored in supply cabinets. Probably
they didn’t even read the printed
words on such forms — merely filled
in blank spaces. If the numbered
items on the work sheet corresponded
with the numbered blanks on the
forms, that was all they needed to
go ahead.

That was also the frame of mind
of those who would carry out the
instructions on the documents. Make
sure the proper signature authorizes
the act, and do it. If the action is
wrong it is the signer’s neck, not
theirs. They simply did what they
were told. And it was doubtful that
such a vast machine as government
could function if it were otherwise,
if every clerk took it upon himself
to question the wisdom of each move
of the higher echelons.

Of course, under normal proce-
dures, someone did check the docu-
ments before they were placed on his
desk to sign. There again, if the
signer took the time to check the
accuracy of how the spaces were
filled in, government would never
get done. There had to be a checker,
and in the case of his department
that was a job Miss Verity had kept
for herself. Her eagle eye would
have caught the error immediately,
and in contempt with such incom-
petence she would have bounced into
the typing pool with fire in her eye
to find out who would do such a
stupid thing as this.

He had his answer ready, of
course, just in case anybody did dis-
cover the mistake. He had closed out

his apartment, where he lived alone,
and booked a suite in a hotel. The
work sheet was an order to have his
things transferred to his new room
number. The scribbled information
was the same, and, obviously, he had
simply designated the wrong form
number.

But Miss Verity was away on her
vacation, and there wasn’t anybody
to catch the mistake.

He lifted his eyes from the signa-
ture space on the paper in front of
him at the rapidly dwindling stack.
The document was next on top.

There it was, neatly typed,' bear-
ing no special marks to segregate it
from other routine matters, and
thereby call attention to it. There
were no typing errors, no erasures,
nothing to indicate that the typist
might have been startled at what she
was typing. Nothing to indicate it
had been anything more than a piece
of paper for her to thread into her
machine, fill in, and thread out again
with assembly-line regularity.

He lifted the paper off the stack
and placed it in front of himself, in
position for signature. He sighed, a
deep and gasping sigh, almost a
groan. Then he grinned in self deri-
sion. Was he already regretting his
wild action, an action not yet taken ?

All right then, tear up the docu-
ment. Forget about David Storm and
his problem. Forget about trying to
buck the system. Miss Verity was
quite right. Storm was a nobody. As
compared with the other events of
the world, it didn’t matter whether

CLERICAL ERROR

87

Storm got cured, or had his intellect
disconnected through lobotomy, or
just rotted there in his cell because
he had asked some impertinent ques-
tions of the culture in which he lived.

Never mind that the trap into
which Storm had fallen was sym-
bolic of the trap which was miring
down modern science in the same
manner. By freeing the symbol, he
would, in no way be moving to free
all science from its dilemma.

He pushed himself back, away
from his desk, and got to his feet.
He walked over to the window and
looked down the avenue of govern-
ment buildings. Skyscrapers of offices,
as far as his eye could reach. How
many of them held men whose state
of mind matched his own? How
many men quietly, desperately wanted
to do a good job, but were already
beaten by the pattern for frustration,
the inability to take independent
action ?

There was one of the more curious
of the psychological curiosities. In
private an individual may confess to
highly intelligent sympathies, but
when he gets on a board or a panel
or a committee, he has not the cour-
age to stand up against what he thinks
to be the mass temper or mores.

Courage, that was the element
lacking. The courage to fight for
progress, enlightenment, against the
belief that one’s neighbors may not
think the same way. The courage to
fight over the issue, for the sake of
the issue, rather than for the votes
one’s action is calculated to win.

And in that sense David Storm

was not unimportant. Kingston con-
fessed to himself, standing there in
front of the window, that he had
begun this gambit in a Sort of petty
defiance — defiance of the efforts of
Moss and the rest of his staff .to
thwart his instructions, defiance of
Miss Verity’s efforts to make him
into an important figurehead, defiance
of the whole ridiculous dilemma
that the Loyalty program had become.

He wondered if he had ever really
intended to go through with his plan.
Hadn't he kept the reservation, in
the back of his mind, that as long
as he hadn’t signed the order, as
long as it wasn’t released for im-
plementation, he could withdraw?
Why make such an issue over such
a triviality as this Storm fellow?

Yet wasn’t that the essence? Was-
n’t that the question every true sci-
entist had to ask himself every day ?
To buck the accepted and the accept-
able, or to swing along with it and
rush with the tide of man toward
oblivion ?

In the popular books courage was
always embodied in a well-muscled,
handsome, well-intentioned, and
rather stupid young man. But what
about that wispy little unhandsome
fellow, behind the thick glasses per-
haps, who, against ridicule, calumny,
misunderstanding, poverty, igno-
rance, kept on with his intent to find
an aspect of truth?

Resolutely he walked over to his
desk, picked up his pen again, and
signed the document. There ! He
was insane! The document said so!
And the document was signed by the

88

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

Chief Administrator of Psychiatric
Division, Bureau of Science Co-
ordination. That should be enough
authority for anybody!

He tossed it into the outgoing
basket, where it would be picked up
by the mail clerk and routed for
further handling. Rapidly now, he
continued signing other papers,
tossing them into the same basket,
covering the vital one so that it was
down in the middle of the stack, un-
likely to call special attention to
itself.

They came for him at six o’clock
the next morning. That was what the
order had stipulated, that they make
the pickup at this early hour. Two of
them walked into his room, through
the door which he had left unlocked,
and immediately separated so that
they could come at him from either
side. Two burly young men who had
a job to do, and who knew how to
do that job. He couldn’t remember
having seen either of them before,
and there was no look of recognition
on their faces either.

"What is the meaning of this in-
trusion?’’ he said loudly, in alarm.
His intonation sounded like some-
thing from a rather bad melodrama.
"How dare you walk into my room!”
He sat up in bed and pulled the
covers up around his neck.

"There, there, Buster,” one of
them said soothingly. "Take it easy
now. We’re not going to hurt you.”
With a lithe grace they moved into
position. One of them stood near the
foot of his bed, the other came up

to the head, and with a swirling
motion, almost too quick to follow,
slipped his hands under Kingston’s
armpits.

"Time to get up, Buster,” the man
said, and propelled him upward and
outward. The covers fell away from
him, and he found himself standing
on his feet, without quite knowing
how he got there. The second man
was already eying his clothes, which
he had hung over a chair the night
before. They were beautifully train-
ed, he’d have to give Moss that
much credit. It spoke well for .the
routine administration of the Q. S.
wing if all the attendants were as
experienced in being firm, yet gentle.
It wasn’t that psychiatry was inten-
tionally sadistic, just mistaken in its
idea of treatment.

"What is the meaning of this?”
he spluttered again. "Do you know
who I am?” He tried to draw him-
self up proudly, but found it some-
what difficult with his head being
slipped through a singlet undershirt.

"Sure, sure, your majesty,” one of
them said soothingly. "Sure we
know.”

"I am not 'your majesty,’ ” King-
ston said bitingly. "I am Dr. K.
Heidrich Kingston!”

"Oh, pardon me,” the fellow said
apologetically, and flipped Kingston’s
feet into the air just long enough for
his helper to slip trousers onto his
legs. "I’m pleased to meet you.”
"Kingston!” the other fellow said
in an awed voice. “That’s the big
shot, the wheel, himself.”

"Well,” the first one said, as he

89

CLERICAL ERROR

slipped suspenders over the shoul-
ders,. "at least he’s not Napoleon.”
From somewhere underneath his
uniform jacket he suddenly whipped
out a canvas garment, a shapeless
thing Kingston might not have rec-
ognized as a strait jacket if he hadn’t
been experienced. "You gonna co-
operate, Dr. Kingston, or will we
have to put this on you?”

"Oh, he’s not so bad,” the other
fellow said. "This must be his up
cycle. You’re not going to give us
any trouble at all, are you Dr. King-
ston? You’re going to go over to the
hospital with us nicely, aren’t you?”
It was a statement, a soothing persua-
sive statement, not a question. "They
need you over at the hospital, Dr.
Kingston. That’s why we came for
you.”

He looked at them suspiciously,
craftily. Then he smoothed his face
into arrogant lines of overweening
ego.

"Of course,” he said firmly. "Let’s
go to the hospital. They’ll soon tell
you over there who I am!”

"Sure they will, Dr. Kingston,”
the first attendant said. “We don’t
doubt it for a minute.”

"Let’s go,” the other one said.

They walked him out the door, in
perfect timing. They seemed relaxed,
but their fingertips on his arms where
they held him were tense, ready for
an expected explosion of insane
violence. They’d been all through
this before, many times, and their
faces seemed to say that you can al-
ways expect the unexpected. Why,

90

he might even surprise them and go
all the way to his cell without trying
to murder six people in the process.
It just depended on how long his
up cycle lasted, and what period of
the phase he was in when they came,
for him. Probably that was the real
reason why the real Dr. Kingston had
specified this early hour; probably
knew when this nut was in and out
of his phases.

"Wonder what it’s like to be such
a big shot that some poor dope goes
nuts thinking he’s you?” one of them
asked the other as they took him out
of the apartment house door and
down the steps to the ambulance
waiting at the curb.

"I don’t think I’d like to find out,”
the other answered.

"I tell you for the last time, I am
Dr. Kingston!” Kingston insisted
and allowed the right amount of
exasperation to mingle with a note
of fear.

"I hope it’s the last time, doctor,”
the first one said. "It gets kinda
tiresome telling you that we already
know who you are. You don’t have
to keep telling us, you know. We
believe you.”

The way they got him into the
body of the ambulance couldn't ex-
actly be called a pull and a push.
At one instant they were standing
on either side of him at the back
door, and in the next instant one
of them was in front of him and the
other behind him — and there they
were, all sitting in a row inside the
ambulance. The driver didn’t even
look back at him.

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

He kept silent all the way over
to the hospital buildings. He had
made his point. He had offered the
reactions of a normal man caught up
in a mistake, but certain it would
all get straightened out without
making a fuss about it. They had re-
sponded to the reactions of an insane
man, and they hoped they could get
him all straightened out and nicely
deposited in his cell before he began
to kick up a fuss about it. It just
depended on the framework from
which you viewed it, and he neither
wanted to overdo nor underplay his
part to jar them out of their frame
with discrepancies.

But the vital check point was yet
to come. There was nothing in the
commitment form about him being a
Q. S. man, but he had assigned
David Storm’s cell number in the
Q. S. wing. He’d had to check a half
dozen hotels before he’d found one
with an open room of the same
number, so that the clerical error
would stand up all the way down
the line.

The guards of the Q. S. wing were
pretty stuffy about keeping non Q. S.
men out. He might still fail in the
first phase of his solution to the
problem, to provide David Storm
with a doctor, one who might be
able to help him.

The attendants wasted no time
with red tape. The document didn’t
call for pre-examinations, or quaran-
tine, or anything. It just said put
him into room number 1782. So
they went through a side door and
by-passed all the usual routines. They

were good boys who always did
what the coach said. And the docu-
ment, signed by the Chief Coach,
himself, Dr. Kingston, said put the
patient in cell 1782. They were
doing what they were told.

Would the two guards at the en-
trance of the Q. S. wing be equally
good boys?

"You’re taking me to my office,
I assume,” he said as they were walk-
ing down the corridor toward the
cell wing.

"Sure, doctor,’’ one of them said.
"Nice warm cozy office. Just for
you.”

They turned a corner, and the two
guards got up from chairs where
they had been sitting at a hallway
desk. One of the attendants pulled
out the document from his inner
jacket pocket and handed it to the
guard.

"Got another customer for you,”
he said laconically. "For Office num-
ber 1782.” He winked broadly.

"That cell’s . . . er . . . office’s
already occupied.” the guard said
instantly. "Must be a mistake.”

"Maybe they’re starting to double
them up, now,” the attendant said.
"You wanna go up to the Big Chief’s
office and tell him he’s made a mis-
take? He signed it, you know.”

"I don’t know what you men are
up to!” Kingston burst out. "This
whole thing is a mistake. I tell you
I am Dr. Kingston. I’ll have all your
jobs for this . . . this . . . this practi-
cal joke! You are not taking me any
farther ! I refuse to go any farther !”

He laid them out for five min-

CLERICAL ERROR

91

utes, calling upon strings of profan-
ity, heard again and again from the
lips of uncontrolled minds, that
would make an old time mariner
blush for shame. The four of them
looked at him at first with admiration,
then with disgust.

"You’d better get him into his
cell,” one of the guards mumbled to
the attendants. "Before he really
blows his stack.”

"Yeah,” the attendant agreed.
"Looks like he’s going into phase
two, and we have not as yet got
phase one typed. No telling what
phase three might be like.”

The guards stepped back. The at-
tendants took him on down the hall
of the Q. S. wing.

All the way up the elevator, to the
seventeenth floor, and down the hall
to the doorway of Storm’s cell, King-
ston kept wondering if any of them
had ever heard of the Uncle Remus
story of Bre’er Rabbit and the Briar
Patch. "Oh don’t throw me in the
briar patch, Bre’er Fox. Don’t throw
me in the briar patch !”

Stupid people resist clever moves
but willingly carry out stupid pat-
terns. These guards and attendants
were keyed to keeping out anyone
who tried to get in — but if someone
tried to keep out, obviously he must
be forced to go in.

There hadn’t even been a question
about a lack of Q. S. rating on the
form. His vitriolic diatribe had
driven it out of their minds for a
moment, and if they happened to
check it before they stamped the

92

order completed, well, the damage
would already have been done.

He would have talked with David
Storm.

But Storm was not quite that co-
operative. His eyes flared with wild
resentment, suspicion, when the at-
tendants ushered Kingston into the
cell.

"You see, doctor,” one of the at-
tendants said with soothing irony,
and not too concealed humor, "we
provide you with a patient and every-
thing. We’ll move in another couch,
and you two can just lie back, relax,
and just tell each other all about
what’s in your subconscious.”

"Oh, no you don’t,” Storm said
instantly, and backed into a corner of
the cell with an attitude of exag-
gerated rejection. "That’s an old
trick. Pretending to be a cell mate
so you can learn my secret. That’s
an old trick, an old, old, old, old,
o-l-d — ” His lips kept moving, but
the sound of his voice trailed away.

"You needn’t think you're going
to make me listen to your troubles,”
Kingston snapped at him. "I’ve got
troubles of my own.”

Storm’s lips ceased moving, and
he stared at Kingston without blink-
ing.

"You big-shot scientists try to get
along with one another,” one of the
attendants said as they went out the
door.

"Scientists just argue,” the other
attendant commented. "They never
do anything.”

But Kingston hardly heard them,
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

and hardly noticed them when, a
few minutes later, they brought in
a cot for him and placed it on the
opposite side of the cell from Storm’s
cot. He was busy analyzing Storm’s
first reactions. Yes, the pattern was
disturbed, possibly demented, cer-
tainly regressive — and yet, it was not
so much irrational as adolescent, the
bitterness of the adolescent when he
first begins to really realize that the
merchandise of humanity is not living
up to the advertising under which
it has been sold to him.

Under the attendants’ watchful
eyes, Kingston changed into the

shapeless garments of the inmates.
He flared up at them once again,
carrying out his pattern of indigna-
tion that they should do this to him,
but he didn’t put much heart into it.
No point in overdoing the act.

"Looks like he might have passed
his peak,” one of the attendants mut-
tered. "He’s calming down again.
Maybe he won’t be too hard to han-
dle.” They went out the door again
with the admonishment: "Now you
fellows be quiet, and you’ll get break-
fast pretty soon. But if you get
naughty — ’’ With his fist and thumb
he made an exaggerated motion of

CLERICAL ERROR

93

working a hypodermic syringe. Storm
cowered back into his corner of the
cell.

"I’ve given up trying to convince
you numskulls,” Kingston said with
contempt. "I’ll just wait now until
my office hears about this.”

"Yeah,” the attendant said. "Yeah,
you just sit tight and wait. Just keep
waiting — and quiet!”

The sound of their steps receded
down the hallway. Kingston lay back
on his couch and said nothing. He
knew Storm’s eyes were on him,
watching him, as nervous, excited,
and wary as an animal. The cell was
barren, containing only the cots cov-
ered with a tough plastic which defied
tearing with the bare fingers, and a
water closet. There wasn’t a seat on
the latter because that can be torn
off and used as a weapon either
against one’s self or others. In the
wards there would be books, maga-
zines, games, implements of various
skills and physical therapies, all un-
der the eyes of watchful attendants;
but in these cells there was nothing,
because there weren’t enough attend-
ants to watch the occupants of each
cell.

Kingston lay on his couch and
waited. In a little while Storm came
out of his corner and sat down on
the edge of his own couch. His atti-
tude was half wary, half belligerent.

"You needn’t be afraid of me,”
Kingston said softly, and kept look-
ing upward at the. ceiling. "I really
am Dr. Heidrich Kingston. I’m a
psychiatrist. And I already know all
about you and your secrets.”

94

He heard a faint whimper, the
rustling of garments on the plastic
couch cover, as if Storm were shrink-
ing back against the wall, as if he
expected this to be the prelude to
more punishment for having such
secret thoughts. Then a form of rea-
soning seemed to prevail, and King-
ston could feel the tension relaxing
in the room.

"You’re as crazy as I am,” Storm
said loudly. There was relief in his
voice, and yet regret.

Kingston said nothing. There was
no point in pushing it. If his luck
held, he would have several days.
Miss Verity could be counted on to
cut her vacation short and come back
ahead of time, but even with that, he
should have at least three days. And
while Storm was badly disoriented,
he could be reached.

"And that’s an old, old trick, too,”
Storm said in a bitter singsong. "Pre-
tending you already know, so I’ll talk.
Well I’m not a commie! I’m not a
traitor! I’m not any of those things.
I just think — ” He broke off abrupt-
ly. "Oh, no you don’t!” he exclaim-
ed. "You can’t trick me into telling
you what I think. That’s an old, old,
old, old — ”

It was quite clear why the therapies
used by Moss hadn’t worked. Storm
was obsessed with guilt. He had been
working in the highest echelons of
Loyalty and at the same time had been
harboring secret doubts that the
framework was right. The Moss
therapies then were simply punish-
ments for his guilt, punishments
which he felt he deserved, punish-

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

ments which confirmed his wrong-
doing. And Moss would be so con-
vinced that Storm’s thoughts were
entirely wrong, that he couldn’t pos-
sibly use the technique of agreement
to lead Storm out of his syndrome.
That was why Moss’ past was stain-
less, why the Security Board trusted
him with a Q.S.; he was as narrow
in his estimate of right and wrong
as they.

"Old, old, old, old — ” Storm kept
repeating. He was stuck in the ado-
lescent groove of bitter cynicism, not
yet progressed to the point of real-
izing that in spite of its faults and
hypocrisies, there were some elements
in humanity worth a man’s respect
and faith. Even a thinking man.

It was a full day later before King-
ston attempted the first significant
move in reaching through to Storm.
The previous day had confirmed the
pattern of the attendants: A break-
fast of adequate but plain food. Moss
would never get caught on the tech-
nicality so prevalent in many institu-
tions where the inmates can’t help
themselves — chiseling on food and
pocketing the difference. After break-
fast a clean-up of the cells and their
persons. Four hours alone. Lunch.
Carefully supervised and highly lim-
ited exercise period. Back to the cell
again for another four hours. Supper.
And soon, lights out.

It varied, somewhat, from most
mental hospital routine; but these
were all Q. S. men, each bearing
terrible secrets which had snapped
their minds. They musn’t be allowed

to talk to one another. It varied, too,
from patient to patient. It varied
mainly in that the cells were largely
soundproof; they had little of the
screaming, raging, cursing, stran-
gling, choking bedlam common in
many such institutions.

Moss was a good administrator.
He had his wing under thorough
control. It was as humane as his lim-
ited point of view could make it.
There were too few attendants, but
then that was always the case in
mental hospitals. In this instance it
worked in Kingston’s favor. There
would be little chance of interrup-
tion, excepted at the planned times.
In going into another person’s mind
that was a hazard to be guarded
against, as potentially disastrous as
a disruption of a major operation.

No reverberation of alarm at his
absence from his office reached this
far, and Kingston doubted there
would be much. Miss Verity was
more efficient than Moss and the
organization she had set up would
run indefinitely during his absence
and hers. Decisions, which only he
could make, would pile up in the
staff offices, but that was nothing
unusual in government.

He didn’t try to rush Storm. With
a combination of the facts he had
gleaned from the file and the em-
pathy he possessed, he lay on his
cot and talked quietly to the ceiling
about Storm. His childhood, his days
in school, his attitudes toward his
parents, teachers, scout masters, all
the carefully tailored and planned
sociology surrounding growing youth

CLERICAL ERROR

95

in respectable circumstances of today.
It was called planned youth develop-
ment, but it could better be called
youth suppression, for its object was
to quell any divergent tendencies,
make the youth docile and complai-
sant — a good boy, which meant no
trouble to anybody.

He translated the standard pattern
into specifics about Storm, for ob-
viously, until his breakup, David had
been the epitome of a model boy.
There are several standard patterns
of reaction to this procedure. Eager
credulity, where the individual is
looking for a concrete father image
to carry his burdens; rejective skep-
ticism, where the individual seizes
upon the slightest discrepancy to
prove the speaker cannot know; oc-
casionally superstitious fear and
awe; and even less occasionally a
comprehension of how gestalt em-
pathy works. But whatever the pat-
tern of reaction, it is the rare person,
indeed, who can keep from listening
to an analysis of himself.

Storm lay on his side on his cot,
facing Kingston — a good sign be-
cause the previous day he had faced
the wall — and watched the older man
talk quietly and easily at the ceiling.
Kingston knew when he came close
to dangerous areas from the catch in
Storm’s breathing, but there was no
other sign. Deliberately he broke off
in the middle of telling Storm what
his reactions had been at the bull ses-
sion where the radical had been talk-
ing.

There was about ten minutes of
silence. Several times there was an

96

indrawn breath, as if Storm were
starting to say something. But he kept
quiet. Kingston picked up the thread
and continued on, as if no time had
elapsed.

He got his reward during the-
exercise period. Storm kept close to
him, manifestly preferred his com-
pany to that of the attendants. They
were among the less self-destructive
few who were allowed a little time
at handball. The previous day Storm
had swung on the ball, wildly, angri-
ly, as if to work off some terrible
rage by hitting the ball. There hadn’t
been even the excuse of a game.
Storm, younger and quicker, much
more intense, had kept the ball to
himself. Today Storm seemed the
opposite. The few times he did hit
the ball he deliberately placed it
where Kingston could get it easily.
Then he lost interest and sat down
in a corner of the court. The attend-
ants hustled them out quickly, to
make room for others.

Back in the cell, Kingston picked
up the thread again. Genuine accom-
plishment in gestalt empathy allows
one to enter directly into another
man’s mind; his whole life is laid
open for reading. Specific events are
often obscure, but the man’s pattern
of reactions to events, the psycho-
logical reality of it, is open to view.
Kingston narrated, with neither im-
plied criticism nor praise, until, mid-
afternoon, he sprang a bombshell.

"But you were wrong about one
thing, Storm,’’ he said abruptly. He
felt Storm’s instant withdrawal, the

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

return of hostility. "You thought
you were alone. You thought you
were the only one with this terrible
flaw in your nature. But you were
not alone, son. And you aren’t alone
now.

"You put your finger on the major
dilemma facing science today.”

Now, for the first time, he glanced
over at Storm. The young man was
up on his elbow, staring at Kingston
with an expression of horror. As
easily as that, his secret had come
out. And he did not doubt that King-
ston knew his thoughts. The rest of
it had fitted, and this fitted, too. He
began to weep, at first quietly, then
with great, wracking sobs.

"Disgrace,” he muttered. "Dis-
grace, disgrace, disgrace. My mother,
my father — ” He buried his face in
his arms. His whole body shook. He
turned his face to the wall.

"All over the world, the genuine
men of science are fighting out these
same problems, David,” Kingston
said. "You are not alone.”

Storm started to put his hands over
his ears — then took them away.
Kingston appeared not to notice.

"Politicians, not only ours, but all
over the world, have discovered that
science is a tremendous weapon. As
with any other weapon they have
seized it and turned it to their use.
But it would be a .great mistake to
cast the politician in the role of vil-
lain. He is not a villain. He simply
operates in an entirely different
framework from that of science.

"Science does not understand his
framework. A man of science grows

extremely cautious with his words.
He makes no claims he cannot sub-
stantiate. He freely admits it when
he does not know something. He
would be horrified to recommend the
imposition of a mere theory of con-
duct upon a culture. The politician
is not bothered by any of this. He
has no hesitancy in recommending
what he believes be imposed upon
a culture; whatever is necessary for
him to get the votes he will say.

"The scientist states again and
again that saying a thing is true will
not make it true. In classical physics
this may have been accurate, although
there is doubt of its truth in relative
physics, and it is manifestly untrue
in the living sciences. For often the
politician says a thing with such a
positive strength of confidence that
the people begin operating in a
framework of its truth and so imple-
ment it that it does become true.

"The public follows the politician
by preference. Most of us have never
outgrown our emotional childhood,
and when the silver cord, the apron
strings are broken from our real
parents, we set about trying to find
parent substitutes to bear the respon-
sibility for our lives. The scientist
stands in uncertainty, without pana-
ceas, without sure-fire solutions of
how to have all we want and think
we want. The politician admits to no
such uncertainties. He becomes an
excellent - father substitute. He will
take care of us, bear the brunt of
responsibility for us.

"But this clash of frameworks goes
much deeper than that. Just as the

CLERICAL ERROR

97

scientist cannot understand the poli-
tician, so the politician does not
understand science. Like most people,
to him the scientist is just a super
trained mechanic. He’s learned how
to manipulate some laboratory equip-
ment. He has memorized some vague
and mysterious higher math formulae.
But he’s just a highly skilled me-
chanic, and, as such, is employed by
the politician to do a given job. He
is not expected to meddle in things
which are none of his concern.

"But in science we know this is
a false estimation. For science is far
more than the development of a
skill. It is a frame of thought, a
philosophy, a way of life. That was
the source of your conflict, son. You
were trying to operate in the field of
science under the politician’s estima-
tion of what it is.

"The scientist is human. He loves
his home, his flag, his country. Like
any other man 'he wishes to protect
and preserve them. But the political
rules under which he is expected to
do this come in direct conflict with
his basic philosophy and approach
to enlightenment. We have one
framework, then, forced to make
itself subservient to another frame-
work, and the points of difference
between the two are so great, that
tremendous inner conflicts are
aroused.

"The problem is not insuperable.
Science has dealt with such problems
before. Without risk to home, flae
and country, science will find a way
to deal with this dilemma, also. You
are not alone.”

98

There was a long silence, and then
Storm spoke, quite rationally, from
his cot.

"That’s all very nice,” he said,
"but there’s one thing wrong with it.
You're just as crazy as I am, or you
wouldn’t be here.”

Kingston looked over at him and
laughed.

"Now you’re thinking like the
politician, Storm,” he said. "You’re
taking the evidence and saying it
can have only one possible interpreta-
tion.” He was tempted to tell Storm
the truth of why he was here, and
to show him that science could find
a way, without harm, to circumvent
the too narrow restrictions placed
upon it by the political mind. But
that would be unwise. Better never
to let anyone know how he had
manipulated it so that a simple
clerical error could account for the
whole chain of events.

"I really am Dr. Heidrich King-
ston,” he said.

"Yeah,” Storm agreed, too quick-
ly. There was derision in his eyes, but
there was also pity. That was a good
sign, too. Storm was showing evi-
dence that he could think of the
plight of someone else, other than
himself. "Yeah, sure you are.” he
added.

"You don’t think so, now,” King-
ston laughed. "But tomorrow, or the
next day, my secretary will come to
the door, there, and get me out of
here.”

"Yeah, sure. Tomorrow — or the
next day.” Storm agreed. "You just

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

go on thinking that, fellow. It helps,
believe me, it helps.”

"And shortly afterwards you’ll be
released, too. Because there’s no
point now in keeping you locked up,
incommunicado. I know all about
your secrets, you see.”

"Yeah,” Storm breathed softly.
"Tomorrow or the next day, or the
day after that, or the day after —
Yeah, I think I’ll believe it, too,
fellow. Yeah, got to believe in some-
thing.”

In a limited fashion the patterns
of human conduct can be accurately
predicted, Cause leads to effect in
the lives of human beings, just as it
does in the physical sciences. The old
fellow who had once told Storm that
the universe does not hand out print-
ed instructions on how it is put to-
gether was only literally correct. Fig-
uratively, he was in error, for the
universe does bear the imprints of
precisely how it is put together and
operates. It is the business of science
to learn to read those imprints and
know their meanings. Life is a part

of the universe, bearing imprints of
how it operates, too. And we already
read them, after a limited fashion.
We couldn’t have an organized so-
ciety, at all, if this were not true.

Kingston had made some move-
ment beyond generalized quantum
theory, and could predict the given
movements of certain individuals in
the total motion of human affairs.

Faithful to the last drawn line on
the charted pattern, it was the next
morning that Miss Verity, with
clenched jaws and pale face, stepped
through the cell door, followed by a
very worried and incredulous guard.

"Dr. Kingston,” she said firmly,
then faltered. She stood silent for
an instant, fighting to subdue her
relief, anger, exasperation, tears. She
won. She did not break through the
reserve she treasured. She spoke
then, quite in the secretarial manner,
but she could not subdue a certain
triumph in her eyes.

"Dr. Kingston,” she repeated, "it
seems that while I was on my vaca-
tion, you made a . . . ah . . . clerical
error.”

THE END

THE ANALYTICAL LABORATORY

The September, 1955 issue was one of those "two divisions” numbers,
apparently. "Call Him Dead,” Part II, got a practically solid first-place vote;
the agreement on second place, "The Gift of Gab” was almost equally solid.
.Then the fight began — from there on out it was so tight a vote that the
difference shows only in the third significant figure.

( Concluded on page 148)

CLERICAL ERROR

09

SILENT BROTHER

BY PAUL JANVIER

The one invader you can never stop is,
of course, the one you can’t want to stop.

Illustrated by van Dongen

The first starship was home.

At first, the sight of the Endeav-
or's massive bulk on his TV screen
held Cable’s eager attention. At his
first glimpse of the starship’s drift
to its mooring alongside a berthing

satellite, he’d felt the intended im-
pression of human grandeur; more
than most viewers, for he had a pre-
cise idea of the scale of size.

But the first twitch of ambiguity
came as he watched the crew come

100

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

out and cross to the Albuquerque
shuttle on their suit jets. He knew
those men: Dugan, who’d be impa-
tient to land, as he’d been impatient
to depart; Frawley, whose white hair
would be sparsely tousled over his
tight pink scalp; Snell, who’d have
run to fat on the voyage unless he’d
exercised like the very devil and
fasted like a zealot hermit; young
Tommy Penn, who’d be unable to
restrain his self-conscious glances di-
rectly into the cameras.

It was exactly those thoughts
which dulled his vicarious satisfac-
tion. He stayed in front of the set,
watching through the afternoon,
while the four men took off their-
suits and grouped themselves' brief-
ly for the still photographers, while
they got past the advance guard of
reporters into the shuttle’s after com-
partment, and refused to speak for
the video coverage.

It made no essential difference that
Snell was lean and graceful, or that
all four of them, Frawley and Penn
included, were perfectly poised and
unruffled. Perhaps it was a little more
irritating that they were.

Endeavor’s crew was stepping
gracefully into history.

The cameras and Cable followed
the four men out of the shuttle and
across the sun-drenched field at Al-
buquerque. Together, they watched
every trivial motion; Dugan’s first
cigarette in six months; Frawley’s
untied shoelace, which he repaired
by casually stopping in the middle
of the gangway and putting a leg

up on the railing; Tommy Penn giv-
ing a letter to a guard to mail.

Together with a billion other in-
habitants of what was no longer
Man’s only planet, Cable looked into
the faces of the President of the
United States, the United Nations
Secretary General, Premier Sobieski,
and Marshal Siemens. Less than oth-
ers, because he had a professional’s
residual contempt for eulogies, he
heard what they had to say.

By nine or nine-thirty that night,
he had gathered the essential facts
about the Solar System of Alpha
Centaurus, There were five planets,
two of them temperate and easily
habitable, one of them showing
strong hints of extensive heavy metal
ores. The trip had been uneventful,
the stay unmarked by extraordinary
incident. There was no mention of
inhabitants.

There was also no mention of any-
thing going wrong with the braking
system, and that, perhaps, intensified
the crook that had begun to bend
one corner of Cable's thin mouth.

"You’re welcome,” he couldn’t
help grunting as Frawley described
the smoothness of the trip, and the
simplicity of landing. That decelerat-
ing a object of almost infinite mass
within a definitely finite distance was
at all complicated didn’t seem to be
worthy of mention.

More than anything, it was the
four men’s unshakable poise that be-
gan to grate against him.

"Happens every day,” he grunted
at them, simultaneously telling him-
self he’d turned into a crabby old

SILENT BROTHER

101

man at thirty-four, muttering spite-
fully at his friends for doing what
he himself was no longer capable
of.

But that flash of insight failed to
reappear when his part in Endeavor s
development was lumped in with the
"hard-working, dedicated men whose
courage and brilliance made our
flight possible.” Applied to an indi-
vidual, phrases like that were mean-
ingful, Used like this, they covered
everyone from the mess hall attend-
ants to the man in charge of keeping
the armadillos from burrowing under
the barrack footings.

He snapped the set off with a
peevish gesture. Perhaps, if he
stayed up, the program directors,
running out of fresh material at
last, might have their commentators
fill in with feature stuff like "amaz-
ing stride forward in electronics,”
"unified field theory,” "five years of
arduous testing on practical applica-
tion to spaceship propulsion,” and
the like. Eventually, if they didn’t
cut back to the regular network
shows first, they might mention his
name. Somebody might even think
it important that Endeavor had cost
the total destruction of one proto-
type and the near-fatal crash of an-
other.

But suddenly he simply wanted to
go to bed. He spun his chair away
from the set, rolled into the bed-
room, levered himself up and pulled
his way onto the bed. Taking his legs
in his calloused hands, he put them
under the blankets, turned off the
lights, and lay staring up at the dark.

Which showed and told him noth-
ing.

He shook his head at himself. It
was only twenty miles to the field
from here. If he was really that much
of a gloryhound, he could have gone.
He was a dramatic enough sight.
And, in all truth, he hadn’t for a
minute been jealous while the En-
deavor was actually gone. It was just
that today’s panygerics had been a
little too much for his vanity to
stave off.

He trembled on the brink of ad-
mitting to himself that his real trou-
ble was the feeling that he’d lost all
contact with the world. But only
trembled, and only on the brink.

Eventually, he fell asleep.

He’d slept unusually well, he dis-
covered when he awoke in the morn-
ing. Looking at his watch, he saw
it had only been about eight hours,
but it felt like more. He decided to
try going through the morning with-
out the chair. Reaching over to the
stand beside his bed, he got his
braces and tugged them onto his
legs. Walking clumsily, he tottered
into the bathroom with his canes,
washed his face, shaved, and combed
his hair.

He’d forgotten to scrub his bridge
last night. He took it out now, and
realized only after he did so that his
gums, top and bottom, were sore.

"Oh, well,” he told himself in the
mirror, "we all have our cross to
bear.”

He decided to leave the bridge
out for the time being. He never
chewed with his front teeth anyway.

102

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTI-ON

Whistling "Sometime” shrilly, he
made his way back into the bedroom,
where he carefully dressed in a suit,
white shirt, and tie. He’d seen too
many beat-up men who let them-
selves go to pot. Living alone the
way he did made it even more im-
portant for him to be as neat as he
could.

What’s more, he told himself in-
sidiously, one of the boys might drop
over.

Thinking that way made him
angry at himself. It was pure decep-
tion, because the bunch wouldn’t un-
tangle themselves out of the red
tape and de-briefings for another
week. That kind of wishful thinking
could drift him into living on hun-
gry anticipations, and leave him
crabbed and querulous when they
failed to materialize on his unreal
schedule.

He clumped into the kitchen and
opened the refrigerator with a yank
of his arm.,

That was something else to watch
out for. Compensation was all well
and good, but refrigerators didn’t
need all that effort to be opened. If
he got into the habit of applying
excessive arm-strength to everything,
the day might come when he’d con-
vince himself a man didn’t need legs
at all. That, too, was a trap. A man
could get along without legs, just
as a man could teach himself to
paint pictures with his toes. But
he’d paint better with finger dex-
terity.

The idea was to hang on to real-

ity. It was the one crutch everybody
used.

He started coffee boiling and went
back out to the living room to switch
on the TV.

That was another thing. He could
have deliberately stopped and turned
it on while on his way to the kitchen.
But he’d never thought to save the
steps before he’d crashed. More diffi-
cult? Of course it was more difficult
now! But he needed the exercise.

Lift. Swing. Lock. Lean. Lift other
leg. Swing, lock. Lean. Unlock other
leg. Lift —

He cursed viciously at the per-
spiration going down his face.

And now the blasted set wouldn’t
switch on. The knob was loose.

He looked more closely, leaning
carefully to one side in order to get
a look at the set’s face.

He had no depth perception, of
course, but there was something
strange about the dark square be-
hind the plastic shield over the face
of the tube.

The tube was gone. He grunted
incredulously, but, now that his eye
was accustomed to the dimmer light
in this room, he could see the inside
of the cabinet through the shield.

He pushed the cabinet away from
the wall with an unexpected ease
that almost toppled him. The entire
set was gone. The antenna line dan-
gled loosely from the wall. Only the
big speaker, mounted below the
chassis compartment, was still there.

First, he checked the doors and
windows.

SILENT BROTHER

103

The two doors were locked from
the inside, and the house, being air-
conditioned, had no openable win-
dows. He had only to ascertain that
none of the panes had been broken
or removed. Then he catalogued his
valuables, and found nothing gone.

The check was not quite complete.
The house had a cellar. But before
he was willing to go through that
effort, he weighed the only other
possibility in balance.

His attitude on psychiatry was
blunt, and, on psychology, only a
little less so. But he was a pragma-
tist; that is, he played unintuitive
poker with success.

Because he was a pragmatist, he
first checked the possibility that he’d
had a mental lapse and forgotten
he’d called to have the set taken out
for repairs. Unlocking the front
door, he got the paper off the step.
A glance at the date and a story
lead beginning "Yesterday’s return of
the Endeavor — ” exploded that hy-
pothesis, not to his surprise. The set
had been there last night. It was
still too early today for any repair
shop to be open.

Ergo, he had to check the cellar
windows. He hadn’t lost a day, or
done anything else incredible like
that. Tossing the paper on the
kitchen table, he swung his way to
the cellar door, opened it, and, look-
ed down, hoping against hope that
he’d see the broken window from
here and be able to report the bur-
glary without the necessity of having
to ease himself down the steps.

But, no such luck. Tucking the

104

canes under his left arm, he grasped
the railing and fought his body’s
drag.

Once down, he found it unneces-
sary to look at the windows. The
set chassis was in the middle of his
old, dust-covered workbench. It was
on 1 its side, and the wiring had been
ripped out. The big tube turned its
pale face toward him from a nest
of other components. A soldering
iron balanced on the edge of the
bench, and some rewiring had been
begun on the underside of the
chassis.

It was only then — and this, he
admitted to himself, without any
feeling of self-reproach, was perfect-
ly normal for a man like himself —
that he paid any notice to the super-
ficial burns, few in number, on the
thumb and forefinger of his left
hand.

The essence of anything he might
plan, he decided, was in. discarding
the possibility of immediate outside
help.

He sat in his chair, drinking a
cup of the coffee he’d made after
having to scrape the burnt remains
of the first batch out of the coffee-
maker, and could see where that
made the best sense.

He had no burglary to report, so
that took care of the police. As for
calling anyone else, he didn’t have
the faintest idea of whom to call if
he’d wanted to. There was no gov-
ernment agency, local, state, or fed-
eral — certainly not international,
ramified though the United Nations
was — offering advice and assistance

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

to people who disassembled their
own TV sets in their sleep and then
proceeded to re-work them into some-
thing else. If there was anyone else
in the house, he was capable of hid-
ing behind wallpaper.

Besides, this was one he’d solve
for himself.

He chuckled. What problem
wasn’t? He was constitutionally in-
capable of accepting anyone else’s
opinion over his own, and he knew
it.

Well, then, data thus far:

One ex-TV set in the cellar. Bet-
ter: one collection of electronic

parts.

Three burns on fingertips. Solder-
ing iron?

He didn’t know. He supposed that,
if he ever took the trouble to bone
up with a book or two on circuitry,
he could throw together a fair FM
receiver, and, given a false start or
two, mock up some kind of jackleg
video circuit. But he’d never used a
soldering iron in his life. He imag-
ined the first try might prove dis-
gracefully clumsy.

Questions :

How did one shot-up bag of rag-
doll bones and twitchless nerves
named Harvey Cable accomplish all
this in his sleep?

How did said human equivalent
of a hangar queen pull that set out
of the cabinet, hold it in both arms
as he’d have to, and, even granting
the chair up to this point, make it
down the cellar steps?

Last question, par value, $64.00:
Where had the tools come from?

He searched the house again, but
there was definitely no one else in it.

Toward noon, he found his mind
still uneasy on one point. He got
out his rubber-stamp pad, inked his
fingertips, and impressed a set of
prints on a sheet of paper. With
this, his shaving brush, and a can
of talcum powder, he made his way
into the cellar again, and dusted the
face of the picture tube. The results
were spotty, marred by the stiffness
of the brush and his lack of skill,
but after he hit on the idea of let-
ting the powder drift across the glass
like a dry ripple riding the impetus
of his gently blown breath, he got
a clear print of several of his fingers.
There were some very faint prints
that were not his own, but he judged
from their apparent age that they
must belong to the various assem-
blers in the tube’s parent factory.
There were no prints of comparable
freshness to his own, and he knew
he’d never handled the tube before.

That settled that.

Next, he examined the unfamiliar
tools that had been laid on the bench.
Some of them were arranged in neat
order, but others — the small electric
soldering iron, a pair of pliers, and
several screwdrivers — were scattered
among the parts. He dusted those,
too, and found his own prints on

them. All of them were new, and
unmarked with work scratches. But

then, he knew how to handle screw-
drivers and pliers, as well as more
complicated tools.

He went over to where his elec-

SILENT BROTHER

105

trie drill was hanging up beside his
other woodworking tools. There were
a few shavings of aluminum cling-
ing to the burr of the chuck. Going
back to the reworked chassis, he
saw that several new cuts and
drillings had been made in it.

Well. He looked blankly at it all.

Next question: What in the name
of holy horned hell am I building?

He sat looking thoughtfully down
at the paper, which he’d finally come
around to reading. He wasn’t the
only one infested with mysteries.

The story he’d glanced at before,
approached as a news story and not
as a dating corroborator, read:

OFFICIAL CENSORSHIP
SHROUDS ENDEAVOR CREW.
Albuquerque, May 14 — Yesterday’s
return of the Endeavor brought with
it a return of outmoded press poli-
cies on the part of all official govern-
ment agencies concerned. In an un-
precedented move, both the U. S. and
U. N. Press Secretaries late last night
refused to permit further interviews
with the crew or examination of the
starship. At the same time, the Press
was restricted to the use of official
mimeographed releases in .its stories.

Unofficial actions went even far-
ther. " Off the record,” reporters at
the Sandia auxiliary press facilities
were told that a "serious view”
might " well be taken” if attempts
ivere made to circumvent these regu-
lations. This was taken to mean that
offending newspapers ivould hence-
forth be cut off from all official re-

106

leases. Inasmuch as these releases
now constitute all the available in-
formation on the Endeavor, her crew,
and their discoveries, this "unofficial
advice” is tantamount to a threat of
total censorship. The spokesman
giving this "advice” declined to let
his name be used.

Speculation is rife that some se-
rious mishap, in the nature of an
unsuspected disease or infection, may
have been discovered among mem-
bers of the Endeavor’s crew. There
can, of course, be no corroboration
or denial of this rumor until the
various agencies involved deign to
give it.

Under this was a box: "See Edito-
rial, 'A Free Press in a Free World,'
p. 23.”

Cable chuckled, momentarily, at
the paper’s discomfiture. But his face
twisted into a scowl again while he
wondered whether Dugan, Frawley,
Snell, and Tommy Penn were all
right. The odds were good that the
disease theory was a bunch of
journalistic hogwash, but anything
that made the government act like
that was sure to be serious.

Some of his annoyance, he real-
ized with another chuckle on a
slightly different note, came from
his disappointment. It looked like it
might be even longer before the
bunch was free to come over and
visit him.

But this return to yesterday’s per-
verse selfishness did not stay with
him long. He was looking forward
eagerly to tonight’s experiment. Cable

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

smiled with a certain degree of ani-
mation as he turned the pages. By
tomorrow, he’d have a much better
idea of what was happening here.
Necessarily, his own problem eclipsed
the starship mystery. But that was
good.

It was nice, having a problem to
wrestle with again.

There was an item about a bur-
gled hardware store — "small tools
and electrical supplies were taken”
— and he examined it coolly. Data
on source of tools?

The possibility existed. Disregard
the fact he was the world’s worst
raw burglar material. He hadn’t been
a set designer before last night,
either.

He immediately discarded the re-
curring idea that the police should
be called. They’d refuse to take him
seriously; there was even a tangible
risk of being cross-questioned by a
psychiatrist.

He judged as objectively as he
could that it would take several days
of this before he grew unreasonably
worried. Until such time, he was
going to tackle this by himself, as
best he could.

His gums still ached, he noticed — •
more so than this morning, perhaps.

His eyes opened, and he looked
out at morning sunshine. So, he
hadn’t been able to keep awake all
night. He’d hardly expected to.

Working methodically, he looked
at the scratch pad on which he’d
been noting the time at ten-minute
intervals. The last entry, in a sloppy
hand, was for eleven-twenty. Some-

what later than he was usually able
to keep awake, but not significantly
much.

He looked at his watch. It was
now 7:50 a.m. A little more than
eight hours, all told, and again he
felt unusually rested. Well, fine. A
sound mind in a sound body, and
all that. The early worm gets the
bird. Many lights make hand work
easier on the eyes. A nightingale in
the bush is worth two birds in the
hand.

He was also pretty cheerful.

Strapping on his braces and pick-
ing up his canes, he now swung
himself over to the locked bedroom
door. There were no new burns on
his fingers.

He looked at the door critically.
It was still locked, and, presumably
until proven otherwise, the key was
still far out of reach in the hall,
where he’d skittered it under the
door after turning the lock.

He turned back to the corner
where he’d left the screwdriver bal-
anced precariously on a complex ar-
rangement of pots and pans which
the tool’s weight kept from toppling,
and which he’d had to hold together
with string while he was assembling
it. After placing the screwdriver,
he’d burned the string, as well as
every other piece of twine or sewing
thread in the house.

He was unable to lift the tool now
without sending the utensils tumbling
with a crash and clatter that made
him wince. It seemed only reason-
able that the racket would have been
quite capable of waking the lialf-

SILENT BROTHER

107

dead, even if none of his other
somnambulistic activities had. But
the screwdriver hadn’t been touched
— or else his sleeping brain was more
ingenious than his waking one.

Well, we’ll see. He went back to
the door, found no scratches on the
lock, but left quite a few in the
process of taking the lock apart and
letting himself out.

Data: key still far out on hall
floor.. He picked it up after some
maneuvering with his canes and
brace locks, put it in his pocket, and
went to the cellar door, which was
also still locked.

His tactics here had been some-
what different. The key was on the
kitchen table, on a dark tablecloth,
with flour scattered over it in a ran-
dom pattern he’d subsequently mem-
orized with no hope of being able
to duplicate it.

The flour was undisturbed. Never-
theless, there was a possibility he
might have shaken out the cloth,
turned it over to hide the traces of
flour remaining, replaced the key,
and somehow duplicated the flour
pattern — or, at any rate, come close
enough to fool himself, provided he
was interested in fooling himself.

This checked out negative. He’d
done no such thing. He defied any-
one to get all the traces of flour out
of the cloth without laundering it,
in which case he’d been wonderfully
ingenious at counterfeiting several
leftover food stains.

Ergo, he hadn’t touched the key.
Ipso facto. Reductio ad absurdum.
Non lessi illegitimis te carborundum.

108

Next move.

He unlocked the cellar door, and
lowered himself down the steps.

Which gave him much food for
thought. He stood cursing softly at
the sight of the chassis with more
work done on it.

For the first time, he felt a cer-
tain degree of apprehension. No be-
wilderment, as yet; too many prac-
tical examples in his lifetime had
taught him that today’s inexplicable
mystery was tomorrow’s dry fact.
Nevertheless, he clumped forward
with irritated impatience and stood
looking down at the workbench.

All the tools were scattered about,
now. The tube had been wiped clean
of his amateur fingerprintings yester-
day, and the tools, apparently, had
come clean in handling. The chassis
was tipped up again, and some parts,
one of which looked as though it had
been revamped, had been screwed
to its upper surface and wired in to
the growing circuit. The soldering
was much cleaner; apparently he was
learning.

He was also learning to walk
through locked doors, dammit!

He’d left a note for himself:
"What am I doing?’’ block-printed
in heavy letters on a shirt cardboard
he’d propped against the chassis. It
had been moved to one side, laid
down on the far end of the bench.

There was no answer.

He glowered down at the day’s
paper, his eye scanning the lines, but
not reading. It wasn’t even in focus.

His entire jaw was aching, but he

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

grimly concentrated past that, grind-
ing at the situation with the sharp
teeth of his mind.

The fingerprints were his, again.
He was still doing a solo — or was it
a duet with himself?

He’d rechecked the locks, exam-
ined the doors, tried to move the
immovable hinge pins, and even test-
ed the bedroom and cellar windows
to make sure against the absurd pos-
sibility that he’d gotten them open
and clambered in and out that way.

The answer was no.

But the thing in the cellar had
more work done on it.

The answer was yes.

That led nowhere. Time out to let
the subconscious mull it over. He
concentrated on the paper, focusing
his blurred vision on the newspaper
by main force, wondering how the
starship base was doing with its mys-
tery.

Not very well. The entire base had
been quarantined, and the official
press releases cut to an obfuscatory
trickle.

For a moment, his anxiety about
the boys made him forget his pre-
occupation. Reading as rapidly as he
could with his foggy eye he discov-
ered that the base was entirely off
limits to anyone, now; apparently
that applied to government person-
nel, too. The base had been cor-
donned off by National Guard units
at a distance of two miles. The paper
was beating the disease drum for all
it was worth, and reporting a great
deal of international anxiety on the
subject.

It seemed possible the paper was
correct in its guess. At any rate, it
carried a front-page story describing
the sudden journeys of several top-
flight biologists and biochemists en
route to the base, or at least this
general area.

Cable clamped his lips into a wor-
ried frown.

He’d been in on a number of the
preliminary briefings on the trip, be-
fore he’d disqualified himself. The
theory had been that alien bugs
wouldn’t be any happier on a hu-
man being than, say, a rock lichen
would be. But even the people quot-
ing the theory had admitted that the
odds were not altogether prohibitive
against it, and it was Cable’s expe-
rience that theories were only good
about twenty-five per cent of the time
in the first place.

It was at this point that the idea
of a correlation between the star-
ship’s mystery and his own first struck
him.

He fumed over it for several
hours.

The idea looked silly. Even at
second or third glance, it resembled
the kind of brainstorm a desperate
man might get in a jam like this.

That knowledge alone was enough
to prejudice him strongly against the
possibility. But he couldn’t quite
persuade himself to let go of it.

Item: The crew of the starship
might be down with something.

Item: The base was only twenty
miles away. Air-borne infection?

Item: The disease, if it was a dis-
ease, had attacked the world’s first

SILENT BROTHER

109

astronauts. By virtue of his jounc-
ings-about in the prototype models,
he also qualified as such.

A selective disease attacking peo-
ple by occupational specialty?

Bushwah !

Air-borne infection in an air-con-
ditioncd house?

All right, his jaw ached and his
vision was blurred.

He pawed angrily at his eye.

By ten o’clock that night, he’d
worked himself into a fuming state
of temper. He clumped downstairs,
stood glaring at the set, and was
unable to deduce anything new from
it. Finally, he followed the second
part of his experimental program
by ripping all the re-done wiring
loose, adding a scrawled "Answer

110

me!” under yesterday’s note, and
went to bed seething. Let’s see what
he did about that.

When he had conceived of inter-
fering with the progress of the work,
he’d intended it as one more cool
check on what the response would
be. But now it had become something
of a personal spite against whatever
it was he was doing in the cellar.

His mouth ached like fury in the
morning, overbalancing his sense of
general well-being. He distracted
himself with the thought that he
was getting a lot of sound rest, for
a man on a twenty-four day, while
he lurched quickly into the bathroom
and peeled his lips back in front of
the mirror.

He stared at the front of his mouth
in complete amazement. Then he be-

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

gan to laugh, clutching the wash-
basin and continuing to look incred-
ulously at the sight in the mirror.

He was teething !

With the look of a middle-aged
man upon the discovery of contracted
chicken pox, he put his thumb and
forefinger up to his gums and felt
the hard ridges of outthrusting
enamel.

He calmed down with difficulty,
unable to resist the occasional fresh
temptation to run his tongue over
the sprouting teeth. Third sets of
teeth occasionally happened, he
knew, but he’d dismissed that pos-
sibility quite early in the game. Now,
despite his self-assurances at the
time the bridge was fitted, he could
admit that manufactured dentures
were never as satisfying as the ones
a man grew for himself. He grinned
down at tire pronged monstrosity
he’d been fitting into his mouth each
morning for the past year, picked
it up delicately, and dropped it into
the wastebasket with a satisfying
sound.

Whistling again for the first time
in two days, he went out to the cellar
door and opened it, bent, and peered
down. He grunted and reached for
the rail as he swung his right foot
forward.

He opened his mouth in a stran-
gled noise of surprise. He’d seen
depth down those stairs. His other
eye was working again — the retina
had re-attached itself!

The stairs tumbled down with a
crash as their supports, sawed
through, collapsed under his weight.

The railing came limply loose in his
clutch,, and he smashed down into
the welter of splintered boards ten
feet below.

I shouldn’t, he thought to himself
in one flicker of consciousness, have
ripped up that set. Then he pitched
into blackness again.

He rolled over groggily, wiped his
hand over his face, and opened his
eyes. There didn’t seem to be any
pain.

He was facing the stairs, which
had been restored. The braces had
been splinted with scrap lumber, and
two of the treads were new wood.
The old ones were stacked in a cor-
ner, and he half-growled at the sight
of brown smears on their splintered
ends.

There was still no pain. He had
no idea of how long he’d been lying
here on the cellar floor. His watch
was smashed.

He looked over at the workbench,
and saw that whatever he’d been
building was finished. The chassis sat
right side up on the bench, the power
cord trailing up to the socket.

It , looked like no piece of equip-
ment he’d ever seen. The tube was
lying on the bench beside the chassis,
wired in but unmounted. Apparent-
ly, it didn’t matter w'bether it was
rigidly positioned or not. He saw
tw'o control knobs rising directly out
of the top of the chassis, as well as
two or three holes in the chassis
where components had been in the
TV circuit but w r ere not required for

SILENT BROTHER

111

this new use. The smaller tubes
glowed. The set was turned on.

Apparently, too, he hadn’t cared
what condition his body was in while
he worked on it.

He’d been fighting to keep his
attention away from his body. The
teeth and the eye had given him a
hint he didn’t dare confirm at first.

But it was true. He could feel the
grittiness of the floor against the
skin of his thighs and calves. His
toes responded when he tried to
move them, and his legs flexed.

His vision was perfect, and his
teeth were full-grown, strong and
hard as he clamped them to keep his
breathing from frightening him.

Something brushed against his leg,
and he looked down. His leg mo-
tions had snapped a hair-thin copper
wire looped around one ankle and
leading off toward the bench. He
looked up, and the triggered picture
tube blinked a light in his eyes.

Blink can’t think blink rhythm I
think blink trick think blink sink
blink wink — CAN’T THINK !

He slammed his hands up against
his face, covering his eyes.

He held them there for a few
choked moments. Then he opened
two fingers in a thin slit, like a little
boy playing peek-a-boo with his
mother.

The light struck his eye again.
This time there was no getting away.
The trigger of the picture tube’s
flicker chipped at each attempt to
think, interrupting each beat of his
brain as it tried to focus its attention
on anything else but the raw stimu-

112

lus of that blink. He had no chance
of even telling his hands to cover
his eyes again.

His body collapsed like a marion-
ette, and his face dropped below
the beam. His head hanging, he got
to his hands and knees like a young
boy getting up to face the schoolyard
bully again.

The blink reflected off the floor
and snapped his head up like a kick.
The beam struck him full in the
eyes.

It was even impossible for him
to tell his throat to scream. He
swayed on his knees, and the blink
went into his brain like a sewintr

o

machine.

Eventually, he fell again, and by
now he was beginning to realize
what the machine was doing to him.
Like an Air Force cadet feeling the
controls of his first trainer, he began
to realize that there was a logic to
this — that certain actions produced a
certain response — that the machine
could predict the rhythm of his
thoughts and throttle each one as it
tried to leave his brain and translate
itself into action or coherent thought.

He looked up deliberately, plan-
ning to snatch his face to one side
the moment he felt it grip him
again.

This time, he was dimly aware of
his arms, flailing upward and trying
to find his face in a hopelessly un-
co-ordinated effort.

He discovered he could sidestep
the blink. If he upset the machine’s
mechanical prediction, he could
think. His mind rolled its thought

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

processes along well-worn grooves.
As simple a thought as knowing he
was afraid had to search out its cor-
relations in a welter of skin tempera-
ture data, respiration and heartbeat
notations, and an army of remem-
bered precedents.

If he could reshuffle that proce-
dure, using data first that would
ordinarily claim his attention last,
he could think. The blink couldn’t
stop him.

Like a man flying cross-country
for the first time, he learned that
railroads and highways are snakes,
not arrows. Like a pilot teaching his
instincts to push the nose down in a
spin, abrogating the falling-response
that made him ache to pull back on
the stick, he learned. He had to, or
crash.

To do that, he had to change the
way he thought.

The blink turned into a flashing
light that winked on and off at pre-
set intervals. He reached up and
decided which knob was logically
the master switch. He turned it off,
feeling the muscles move, his skin
stretch, and his bones roll to the mo-
tion. He felt the delicate nerves in
his fingertips tell him how much
pressure was on his capillaries, and
the nerves under his fingernails cor-
roborate their reading against the
pressure there. His fingers told him
when the switch was off, not the
click of it. There was no click. The
man who’d put that switch in hadn’t
intended it for human use.

Most of all, he felt his silent
brother smile within him.

SILENT BROTHER

The three uniformed men stopped
in the doorway and stared at him.

"Harvey Cable?” one of them fi-
nally asked. He blinked his eyes in
the bright sunshine, peering through,
the doorway.

Cable smiled. "That’s right. Come
on in.”

The man who’d spoken wore an
Air Force major’s insignia and uni-
form. The other two were United
Nations inspectors. They stepped in
gingerly, looking around them cu-
riously.

"I refurnished the place,” Cable
said pleasantly. "I’ve got a pretty
good assortment of wood-working
tools in the cellar.”

The major was pale, and the in-
spectors were nervous. They ex-
changed glances. "Typical case,” one
of them muttered, as though it had
to be put in words.

"We understood you were crip-
pled,” the major stated.

"I was, major — ?”

"Paulson. Inspector Lee, and In-
spector Carveth.” Paulson took a
deep breath. "Well, we’re exposed,
now. May we sit down?”

"Sure. Help yourselves. Exposed
to the disease, you mean?”

The major dropped bitterly into
a chair, an expression of surprise
flickering over his face as he realized
how comfortable it was. "Whatever
it is. Contagious psychosis, they’re
saying now. No cure,” he added
bluntly.

"No disease,” Cable said, but
made little impression. All three
men had their mouths clamped in

113

thin, desperate lines. Apparently the
most superficial contact with the
"disease” had proved sufficient for
"infection.”

"Well,” Cable said, "what can I
do for you? Would you like a drink
first?”

Paulson shook his head, and the
inspectors followed suit. Cable
shrugged politely.

"We came here to do a job,”
Paulson said doggedly. "We might
as well do it” He took an envelope
out of his blouse pocket. "We had
quite a battle with the Postmaster
General about this. But we got it. It’s
a letter to you from Thomas Penn.”
Cable took it with a wordless tilt
of one eyebrow. It had been opened.
Reaching into the envelope, he pulled
out a short note:

Harv —

Chances are, this is the only
way we’ll have time to get in
touch with you. Even so, you may
not get it. Don’t worry about us,
no matter what you hear. We’re
fine. You won’t know how much
until you get acquainted with the
friend we’re sending you.

Good luck,

Tommy

He smiled, feeling his silent
brother smile, too. For a moment,
they shared the warmth of feeling
between them. Then he turned his
attention back to the three men.
"Yes?”

Paulson glared at him. "Well,
114

what about it? What friend? Where
is he?”

Cable grinned at him. Paulson
would never believe him if he told
him. So there was no good in telling
him. He’d have to find out for him-
self.

Just as everybody would. There
was no logic in telling. Telling
proved nothing, and who would wel-
come a "parasitic” alien into his body
and mind, even if that "parasite"
was a gentle, intelligent being who
kept watch over the host, repairing
his health, seeing to his well-being?
Even if that "parasite” gave you
sanity and rest, tranquillity and
peace, because he needed it in order
to fully be your brother ? Who wants
symbiosis until he’s felt it? Not you,
major. Not Harvey Cable, either,
fighting his battles on the edge of
the world, proud, able — but alone.

Who wants to know any human
being can go where he wants to, do
what he wants to, now? Who wants
to know disease is finished, age is
calm, and death is always a falling
asleep, now? Not the medical
quacks, not the lonely hearts bu-
reaus, not the burial insurance com-
panies. Not the people who live on
fear. Who wants a brother who
doesn’t hesitate to slap you down if
you need it while you’re growing
up?

Should the Endeavor have brought
riot and war back with it? Better a
little panic now, damping itself out
before it even gets out of the South-
west.

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

No, you don’t tell people about
this. You simply give it.

"Well?” Paulson demanded again.
Cable smiled at him. "Relax, ma-
jor. There’s all the time in the world.
My friend's where you can’t ever get
him unless I let you. What’s going
on up around the base?”

Paulson grunted his anger. "I
don’t know,” he said harshly. "We
were all in the outer quarantine
circle.”

"The outer circle. It’s getting to
one circle after another, is it?”
"Yes!”

"What’s it like? The disease.
What does it do?”

"You know better than I do.”
“Men walking in their sleep? Do-
ing things? Getting past guards and
sentries, getting out of locked
rooms ? Some of them building
funny kinds of electronic rigs?”
"What do you think?” Paulson
was picturing himself.

"I think so. Frighten you?”
Paulson didn’t answer.

"It shouldn’t. It’s a little rough,
going it alone, but with others
around you, I don’t imagine you’ll
have any trouble.”

It wasn’t the man who momen-
tarily disorganized his body and
passed under a door who was fright-
ened. Not after he could do it of
his own volition instead of uncon-

sciously, at his brother’s direction.
It was the man who watched him
do it, just as it was the men on the
ground who were terrified for the
Wright brothers. Paulson was re-
membering what he’d seen. He had
no idea of how it felt to be free.

Cable thought of the stars he’d
seen glimmering as he rode Endeav-
or's prototype, and the curtains and
clouds of galaxies beyond them. He’d
wanted to go to them all, and stand
on every one of their planets.

Well, he couldn’t quite have that.
There wasn’t time enough in a man’s
life. But his brother, too, had been
a member of a race chained to one
planet. The two of them could see
quite a bit, before they grew too
old.

So we were born in a Solar System
with one habitable planet, and we
developed the star drive. And on
Alpha’s planet, a race hung on, wait-
ing for someone to come along and
give it hands and bodies.

What price the final plan of the
universe? Will my brother and I
find the next piece of the ultimate
jigsaw puzzle?

Cable looked at the three men,
grinning at the thought of the first
time one of them discovered a miss-
ing tooth was growing back in.

Starting with Paulson, he sent
them each a part of his brother.

THE END

SILENT BROTHER

115

CHAINS OF COMMAND

Just because an experiment isn’t repeatable — was due to an
unknown accident — doesn’t meant it’s useless, necessarily , . .

BY REG RHEIN

Illustrated by Freas

The Mathewson Laboratories
Inter-Office Memo

7th April 1992
From: Frederick Morgan
To: Joseph Alturas
Subject: Budget
Dear Joe,

I don’t quite know how to break
116

the news to you, so I’ll just give it
to you the way I got it — the word is
that the appropriation for your proj-
ect has been canceled as of the six-
teenth of next month and your work
on plastics directed to stop right now.
So far I have been given no inkling
of how your experimentation is to

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

be directed in the immediate future.

There has been a general shake-up
in personnel here since Mathewson
took over, and I more or less ex-
pected that your program would be
hit sooner or later — it just so hap-
pens it is sooner. I hope most sin-
cerely that you don’t feel too badly
about it. Kicking Wolfson out of
your lab may have had something
to do with this decision. I can’t say
I blame you for doing it, but it
turned out to be impolitic since
Wolfson has Mathewson’s ear.
Wolfson and Mathewson are distant
relatives of some kind, according to
the grapevine.

Before closing the books on your
work, the front office wants your re-
port on the plastic you have named
Maritech Alpha.

Wolfson asked me for it person-
ally, so I imagine he attaches some
considerable importance to it. Either
that or he feels that by-passing me
would be difficult since his fracas
with you, and it may be that the
front office insists on getting the
report from him to establish a new
channel.

In any event use your own judg-
ment. Wolfson probably will be
giving you your orders directly if
things keep on.

Your friend,

Fred.

The Mathewson Laboratories
Process Division
Inter-Office Memorandum

12th April 1992

From: Joseph Alturas
To : Frederick Morgan
Subject: Manpower
Dear Fred,

I have been getting orders to quit
experimenting with plastics from a
number of people during the last
twenty years. As a matter of fact I
received such a directive from
Mathewson himself when the old boy
wore overalls and we were partners
in this hole-in-the-wall. I paid no
more attention to it then than I in-
tend to pay to it now.

The appropriation be damned! It
isn t money I need nowc I need time.
I need time to get the answers that
only tests and experiments can give.

I haven’t had time to write a
report on Maritech Alpha. If the
manpower situation gets as bad as
you indicate it is going to in the near
future, I may have time to write the
report but no people to do the ex-
periments — for this reason it isn’t
likely that the front office will get
any report for another month. Send
me at least four engineers.

In haste,

Joe.

20th April 1992

Log — 3 :00 a.m.

Dear Joe,

Things were dull around here last
night and I got to thinking we had-
n’t run an exotherm on Maritech
Alpha since the reorientation experi-
ment, so I ran one just for the hell
of it.

Around 2:00 a.m. the XYL
phoned in and said to come home

CHAINS OP COMMAND

1.17

or she was going to start divorce
proceedings in the morning, so am
leaving early.

Take a look at the twenty-channel
chart and see if you can plug the
numbers into Morrison’s equation.
Leave word tonight. I’ll be back at
10:00 p.m.

Bob

20th April 1992

Log-
Dear Bob,

What kind of hours are you keep-
ing these days? Haven’t seen you
for six weeks. Are you still working
for us?

I couldn’t make head nor tail out
of the TC Chart. Are you sure you
oriented the thermocouples for Mari-
tech Alpha? Looks like a beta ar-
rangement. Also — why has the crystal
turned a bright orange-red? Did you
louse it up with recorder ink?

Regards to Doris — if she is still
with you.

By the way, the front office has
directed us to quit all work on Mari-
tech Alpha under the research ac-
count — so charge your time to Aigle’s
account. Old moneybags Aigle can
stand it. What am I saying? Aigle
is a dummy name for me.

Joe.

21st April 1992 3:00 a.m.

Log-
Dear Joe,

I locked the Maritech Alpha crys-
tal in the safe. Try a simple experi-
ment with this crystal, look through
it at the dial of your wrist watch.

There is another experiment you can
try with it. Look through it at the
town clock, then look at the town
clock without it. I don’t believe it
either.

Bob.

The Mathewson Laboratories
Process Division
Inter-Office Memorandum

21st April 1992
From: Joseph Alturas
To: Frederick Morgan
Subject: Resignation
Dear Fred,

Please accept my resignation effec-
tive at once. Enclosed find the resig-
nation of Dr. Robert Bannon. We
are leaving the Lab to go into busi-
ness together. Hale atque Vale!

Joe.

P.S. All the records on Maritech
Alpha were accidentally destroyed
when someone spilled sulphuric acid
on the log book.

Regards and Luck to all,

J.A.

Report No. 85

From: Omni-eye Detective Bureau.

Operative No. 842
To: The Mathewson Laboratories
Attention Dr. Wolf son.

Subject: Requested report covering
period 23rd April 1992 8:00-5:00
p.m.

Subject left home at 9:00 a.m. and
was driven by his chauffeur very rap-
idly to Race Track at Elmira. (80-90
m.p.h.)

Subject was met at track by Dr.

118

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

Bannon. (See report of Operative
No. 87) The meeting appeared to
be pre-arranged.

Subject bet heavily on eighteen
horses during the afternoon. Some of
these were: "Leg-iron” to win, "Fly-
ing Mare” to place, “Black Bart”
to win, "Dream Boat” to win, (a
hundred-to-one long shot), "Sway
Bug” to win, (50 to 1) and others.
Total amount bet: $170. Total win-
nings: $11,800.

Subject used binoculars in a very
peculiar manner. Instead of watch-
ing the horses during the races, sub-
ject appeared to watch nonexistent
moving objects on track between
races.

Subject kept close to Dr. Bannon
and passed binoculars to him at in-
tervals in evident excitement. The
excitement of subject and Bannon
appeared to reach a climax at these
times, and money would change
hands between them. Subject and
Bannon would then place bets at the
pari-mutuel windows, always on the
same horse and with invariable suc-
cess.

This operative could not discern
any movement on track of any kind
which would justify use of binoculars
in above manner except for one stray
dog which was obviously not what
they were watching.

Subject wears a very loud-check-
ered red-and-black vest, alpaca swal-
low-tailed coat and a nylon plug hat.
Subject left track at 2:30 p.m. before
the claiming race and arrived at First
National bank at 2:48. His bank bal-
ance is now $890,000. Binoculars

were left in safe deposit box No. A
65403.

End of Report.

United Press Dispatch

Elmira 24th April 1992

Leonard Wolfson, an executive in
the employ of the Mathewson Labo-
ratories, was today apprehended by
police as he attempted the robbery
of a safe deposit box in the First
National Bank of Elmira.

Wolfson insisted that he was mere-
ly recovering property belonging to
the Mathewson Laboratories, alleg-
ing that this property consisted of
crystals of the plastic "Maritech
Alpha,” stolen by former lab em-
ployees.

Police were waiting for Wolfson
to make the robbery attempt. They
had been informed by Joe Alturas,
a former employee of the Mathewson
Laboratories, that the robbery would
occur at the exact time it took place.

Wolfson told an incredible story
to the effect that he had had Alturas
watched by private detectives for
several days and was forced to the
conclusion that the Maritech crystals
had enabled Alturas to predict the
future. Wolfson claimed that Al-
turas, by "watching the horse races
before they were run” presumably
through transparent crystals of the
stolen plastic, was able to amass a
fortune at the Elmira Rack Track.

Wolfson was unable to explain
why he had not lodged a formal
complaint against Alturas. Alturas
was quoted as saying "If Wolfson is
as sure as he says he is that I can

CHAINS OF COMMAND

119

predict the future, he was certainly
ill-advised in robbing my safety de-
posit box.”

The Associated Press

. 29th April 1992

Elmira:

Purchase of the Mathewson Labo-
ratories by two former employees,
was announced today by Dr. Mathew-
son, business head of the one-hun-
dred-year-old research organization.

An active part will be taken by
the new owners in guiding the desti-
nies of the firm, according to the
retiring president.

Pictures of the new . owners, Joe
Alturas and Robert Bannon, are to
be found on page 64 of the financial
section.

Charges were dropped against Dr.
Wolfson, jailed last week on a rob-
bery complaint. "I’m sure it was all
a mistake,” Alturas was quoted as
saying. "Dr. Wolfson’s only crime
was jumping to conclusions. We will

be happy to have him continue work-
ing with us as head of the plastics
research division.”

Destroy When Read
SECRET

24th April 2002

Dr. Robert Bannon,

Well, it’s taken Wolfson ten years
and he’s finally come up with a Mari-
tech Alpha crystal with a time delta
of 0.03 microseconds. Not bad, for
Wolfson. (Let’s raise his salary to
eighty grand the next time we review
his career.)

Remember that statistical anomaly
back in 1992 — the plasticized Mari-
tech with the differential of thirty
minutes ?

I’ll bet I've made a million plans
for using the next one that comes
along, ranging from National De-
fense to Burlesque.

Do you think we’ll ever have an-
other chance?

Joe.

THE END

IN TIMES TO COME

Murray Leinster’s been having fun with his Colonial Survey inspection
idea again. This time it’s called "Exploration Team” — and centers around
an idea that is so old-fashioned it’s positively revolutionary. Exploring alien
planets of the type men might be interested in as colony worlds is, obviously,
going to be. rugged, dangerous, and expensive work. You can make a ma-
chine do almost anything you know how to tell it to do — but how do you
tell it to act on a world you don’t know anything about?

The Editor.

120

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

THE PRISONER

There are circumstances under which it is
(A) inadvisable to take a prisoner , and (B) ex-
tremely costly to get rid of one you’ve taken!

BY CHRISTOPHER ANVIL

Illustrated by Emsh

ROUTINE 04-1 2-2308-1 623TCT
STAFF

COMGEN IV TO OPCHIEF GS
CAPITOL

REQUEST PERMISSION AD-
VANCE DEFENSE LINE TO SYS-
TEM CODE R3J RPT R3J

ROUTINE 04-13-2308-071 5TCT
STAFF

OPCHIEF GS CAPITOL TO COM-
GEN IV

PERMISSION ADVANCE DE-
FENSE LINE TO SYSTEM CODE
R3J RPT R3J REFUSED RPT RE-
FUSED

URGENT 04 - 14-2308- 150TCT
PERSONAL

COMGEN IV TO OPCHIEF GS
CAPITOL

STINKO IT IS VITALLY NECES-
SARY THAT I TAKE OVER R3J
RPT R3J BEFORE THE OUTS GET
HERE STP YOU KNOW THE
SIZE OF MY FLEET STP LOVE

TO TANYA AND KIDS MART
MARTIN M GLICK COMGEN IV

ROUTINE 04-15-2308-0730TCT
PERSONAL

OPCHIEF GS CAPITOL TO COM-
GEN IV

SORRY MART I CANT LET YOU
DO IT STP R3J RPT R3J IS
TOUGH NUT TO CRACK AND
NOT ENOUGH TIME TO CRACK
IT STP ONLY QUADRITE IN
SYSTEM IS ON FIFTH PLANET
STP TWO PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS
TO TAKE FIFTH PLANET
ABORTED STP SYSTEM AS A
WHOLE IS NO GOOD WITH-
OUT QUADRITE AND WE
COULD NOT SUPPLY YOU
FROM HERE YOU KNOW THAT
STP CANNOT HAVE YOUR
FORCES IN STA-TE OF DISOR-
DER WITEI MINOR CONFLICT
GOING ON WHEN OUTS AR-
RIVE STP I KNOW YOUR POSI-
TION BUT R3J RPT R3J IS NO

THE PRISONER

121

SOLUTION STP CAN ONLY
HOPE THEY WILL ATTACK
ELSEWHERE STP JACKIE IS
FINE STP YOUNG MART HAS
GROWN STP GOOD LUCK STP
STINKO J J RYSTENKO OP-
CHIEF GS

VITAL 04- 16-2308- 1632TCT
STAFF

COMGEN IV TO ALL STATIONS
U EXPLOSION D308L564V013
U EXPLOSION D308L562V013
U EXPLOSION D30SL360V013
U EXPLOSION D308L562V015
U EXPLOSION D308L562V0U
EXPLOSIONS SIMULTANEOUS
TIME OF OBSERVATION 04-16-
2308-1624TCT

VITAL TRANSMIT TRIPLE AT
TEN-MINUTE INTERVALS

URGENT 04-16-2308-1640TCT
PERSONAL

COMGEN IV TO OPCHIEF GS
CAPITOL

STINKO THEY ARE NOT GO-
ING SOMEWHERE ELSE THEY
ARE COMING HERE STP IF
THEY GET BY ME THERE IS
NOTHING FROM HERE TO CAP
BUT THE GR AND THAT WILL
NEVER HOLD THEM STP THEIR
TIMING PERFECT STP MAXI-
MUM CONFUSION STP IF THEY
CAME ANY SOONER THEY
COULD HAVE VOTED IN THE
ELECTION STP IN CIRCUM-
STANCES DESPERATELY NEC-
ESSARY TO TAKE R3J RPT R3J
STP SEND PERMISSION BEFORE
WE WASTE MORE TIME STP

MART MARTIN M GLICK COM-
GEN IV

(Reply requested today.)

Office of the Secretary for Defense
Dear General Rystenko:

As a member of the new Presi-
dent’s cabinet, responsible for the
overall direction of the defense effort,
I am determined to acquire, as soon
as possible, some appreciation of the
overall strategic picture.

So long as I do not understand
the meaning of certain technical
terms, this will be impossible. These
terms are regarded as secret, and no
civilian has any sure idea of their
meaning until he is thrust into an
office where his ignorance may be
fatal. Looking at the dispatch copies
which come to my office, I find the
following terms I would like defined:
a) quadrite; b) GR; c) CAP; d) U
explosion; e) Henkel sphere; f) SB;
g) abort.

I also want a brief summary, on
no more than two sheets of paper,
of the overall defense strategy; a
similar summary of known enemy
capabilities; and a brief point-by-
point comparison of our important
weapons, considering not only quality
but amounts, and present and pro-
jected rates of production.

You need not handle this your-
self; but if you do not, I want you
to check the papers before they come
to me. You will be held personally
responsible for their accuracy.

Sincerely,

James Cordovan
Secretary for Defense

122

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

Dear Mr. Secretary:

Quadrite is a crystalline substance
used as fuel in the non-radioactive,
or N-drive. A small safe quantity of
.radioactive material starts the reac-
tion, which may be stopped by re-
moval of this material. The mass
radioactive, or R-drive, is useless
against the present enemy because he
possesses a means of exploding it
before our ships come into ordinary
firing range. Thus we use quadrite
on warships.

GR means General Reserve. CAP
means Capitol. A U-explosion is a
large explosion of uranium or other
radioactive material by the enemy’s
device, or, occasionally by us. Henkel
sphere is a large self-contained unit
carrying impulse torpedoes and mag-
netic-inductive direction finders. SB

means solar beam; a concentration of
the rays of a sun for offensive or
defensive purposes. "Abort,” as we
use it, merely means "fail.”

The overall defense strategy is
simple. Our forces are located around
the surface of a flattened spheroidal
defensive border. At the outer edge
is a triple layer of warning devices,
the U markers, which explode on
approach of the enemy. Next comes
several layers of Henkel spheres,
stretching from one sun system to
the next. Each sun system is equipped
with solar beams, so far as possible,
so that these sun systems constitute
strong points in the defense perime-
ter, or, if they are cut off, may func-

THE PRISONER

123

tion for some time as isolated for-
tresses in the enemy’s rear. Behind
this outer line of defense lie the
fleets, which help service the Henkel
spheres, fight to repair small breaches
in the defensive perimeter, and in
the event of large breaches, fall back
in an orderly manner and assist in
forming the next defensive line.

As for the known enemy capabil-
ities, and the comparison of their im-
portant weapons with ours, the first
item to consider is their manner of
attack. They come in in huge masses
of ships, moving at a tremendous
velocity, and often making two near-
ly simultaneous attacks at far sepa-
rated parts of our defense lines. A
series of U-explosions signals their
penetration through successive lines
of our U-markers, and then they
hurtle through the lines of Henkel
spheres. The spheres automatically
discharge their impulse torpedoes on
precalculated courses, and at the
same time, our fleet on the spot sows
a series of new layers of spheres
along the estimated course of the
enemy attack. There is no such thing
as a general engagement between
the two fleets, because ours is always
too weak at the point of attack. It
is guarding a vast area which the
enemy can, if he chooses, attack at
any chosen point with his full
force.

Usually, however, just as the situ-
ation becomes desperate, and we feel
compelled to rush the general reserve
to the spot, a second and even strong-
er attack strikes us at some widely
separated point from the first. At

124

this stage, all resemblance to plan
and order ceases, and we are forced
to resort to expediency. Fleets are
rushed from all around the perimeter
to the estimated position of the future
enemy penetrations. Solar beams are
concentrated in a webwork across the
line of enemy attack. It is impossible
to generalize beyond this point. We
do what we can. Usually we are
forced to commit the fleet to battle
at a heavy loss, which weakens us
for the next attack. The enemy cuts
a swath through the whole system,
burns out a number of vitally impor-
tant planetary centers en route, and
erupts outward through some place
which has already been stripped for
defense elsewhere. After the enemy
has gone, we draw together the bits
and pieces, reapportion the weakened
forces, and wait for the next blow.

We know very little of enemy
weapons, save that they are similar
to ours and used in overwhelming
concentrations. As for the enemy per-
sonnel, only one individual has been
captured following a fluke individual
dogfight in which Colonel A. C.
Nielson was killed and the enemy
ship ruined. This enemy individual
showed a) human form, very com-
pact and muscular, with peculiar eyes;
b) fantastic recuperative power, with
healing of very severe wounds, such
as killed Colonel Nielson, taking
place spontaneously and practically
visibly; c) fanatic hostility, shown
as soon as the individual recovered
consciousness; and which was fol-
lowed apparently by the use of some

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

poison, as the enemy’s body then at
once decomposed, too fast to permit
farther examination on the spot.

As for our present rate of produc-
tion, it is suitable to replace approxi-
mately forty per cent of the losses
suffered during enemy attack. This
refers to warship production. Produc-
tion of the cheaper Henkel spheres
would be quite respectable if it were-
n’t for the fact that it takes ships to
put the spheres in position. Projected
production of ships was cut further
in the last budget.

As for recruitment of personnel,
it is barely adequate to man the con-
tinually decreasing strength we are
able to maintain. Training facilities
are inadequate, but the need for men
is so drastic we have no time for
adequate training. The quality of
recruits is poor, since the population
does not believe the situation serious,
and thus has little respect for the
services.

I hope this answers your questions
satisfactorily. I shall be glad to help
you in any way I can.

Respectfully,

J. J. Rystenko
Chief of Operations

4-17-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
Bart:

I am enclosing an answer from
General Rystenko, the Chief of
Operations, to some questions of
mine. I hope you will read it now
and let me know what you think.
Unless Rystenko is exaggerating for

some reason, this is worse than we
ever imagined.

Jim Cordovan

4-17-2308

Office of the President

Jim:

This is horrible. Let me know im-
mediately if you find out anything
more about this.

Bart

(Immediate action) 4-17-2308

Office of the President
General Rystenko:

Report to my office immediately
unless you are occupied with matters
of vital importance.

Barton Baruch

4-17-2308

Office of the President

Jim:

Rystenko is all right. But our pred-
ecessors have gutted the defense
establishment to balance the budget.
Cabinet meeting tonight at 8:30.

Bart

URGENT 04-16-230S-2210TCT
PERSONAL

COMGEN IV TO OPCHIEF GS
CAPITOL

STINKO MY POSITION HOPE-
LESS HERE IN PRESENT CIR-
CUMSTANCES STP ONLY JUS-
TIFICATION FOR INACTION
WAS TO AVOID INVOLVE-
MENT IN MINOR WAR AND
THUS INABILITY TO REIN-
FORCE IF ATTACK CAME ELSE-

THE PRISONER

125

WHERE STP ATTACK IS COM-
ING HERE STP IF I STAY
WHERE I AM I AM LIKE A
MOUSE IN AN UNBLOCKED
HOLE WITH THE WEASEL
COMING ON THE RUN STP I
CANT HOLD THEM HERE STP
THIS TIME THEY WILL GO ALL
THE WAY TO CAP STP STINKO
I HOPE YOUR PERMISSION IS
ON WAY AS I AM GOING TO
TAKE R3J RPT R3J OR DIE TRY-
ING STP LOVE TO TANYA AND
THE KIDS STP GOOD LUCK IF
THEY GET THROUGH STINKO
STP MART MARTIN M GLICK
COMGEN IV

ROUTINE 04-17-2308-1 100TCT
STAFF

OPCHIEF GS CAPITOL TO COM-
GEN IV

IN ABSENCE OF GENERAL
RYSTENKO MY DUTY TO IN-
FORM LIEUTENANT GENERAL
GLICK NO PERMISSION TO AD-
VANCE TO R3J RPT R3J WAS
SENT OR CONTEMPLATED STP
IN EVENT YOU ADVANCE
CONTRARY TO REITERATED
COMMANDS TO CONTRARY
MY DUTY TO INFORM YOU
YOU ARE HEREBY RELIEVED
OF COMMAND AND HEREBY
ORDERED TO TURN OVER
COMMAND TO DEPUTY COM-
GEN IV AS PRESCRIBED RGC
6-143J SECTION 14 STP Q L
GORLEY COLONEL FOR GEN-
ERAL J J RYSTENKO OPCHIEF
GS

126

ROUTINE 04- 1 8-2308- 1 62 5TCT

STAFF

COMGEN IV TO OPCHIEF GS
CAPITOL

ALL RECEIVING APPARATUS
OUT OF ORDER STP POSSIBLY
BY ENEMY ACTION STP AD-
VANCE ELEMENTS OF FLEET
IV APPROACHING SYSTEM
CODE R3J RPT R3J

VITAL 04- 1 8-2308- 1640TCT
STAFF

COMGEN IV TO ALL STATIONS
U EXPLOSION D288L364V103
U EXPLOSION D288L562V103
U EXPLOSION D288L560V103
U EXPLOSION D288L562V105
U EXPLOSION D288L562V099
EXPLOSIONS SIMULTANEOUS
TIME OF OBSERVATION 04-18-
2308-1635TCT

VITAL TRANSMIT TRIPLE AT
TEN-MINUTE INTERVALS

(Reply requested immediately)

4-18-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
General Rystenko:

As you know, OPCHIEF dis-
patches move through my office as
a routine so I will know what your
office is doing. Now I want to know
why this General Glick is being kept
on a short leash. I have gone over a
set of star charts, and if I, can make
anything out of them this System
R3J is a vital link in your defense
system. Who is this Q. L. Gorley,
colonel, who sent the order remov-
ing General Glick ? Why did he send
the order? Are you dodging the

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

responsibility for it? Unless you are
occupied in vital matters I want the
answers to these questions by tube
within fifteen minutes.

J. Cordovan
Secretary 4or Defense

4-18-2308

Office of the Chief of Operations
Dear Mr. Secretary:

I had no knowledge of Gorley’s
action till you called it to my atten-
tion. I am reinstating Glick imme-
diately.

Rystenko

VITAL 04-18-2308 11 25TCT
STAFF

OPCHIEF GS CAPITOL TO COM-
GEN IV

BY ORDER GENERAL J J RYS-
TENKO OPCHIEF GS EFFECTIVE
IMMEDIATELY LIEUTENANT-
GENERAL MARTIN M GLICK IS
RPT IS IN FULL COMMAND
SECTOR IV STP BY ORDER GEN-
ERAL J J RYSTENKO OPCHIEF
GS FULL DISCRETION RPT FULL
DISCRETION GRANTED RPT
GRANTED LIEUTENANT-GEN-
ERAL MARTIN M GLICK COM-
GEN IV INCLUDING RPT
INCLUDING ANY ACTIONS
REGARDING SYSTEM CODE R3J
RPT R3J TIME OF ORIGINAL
ORDER 02-1 8-2308-1 125TCT
VITAL TRANSMIT TRIPLE AT
THIRTY-MINUTE INTERVALS

URGENT 02-18-2308-1 128TCT

PERSONAL

OPCHIEF GS CAPITOL TO COM-
GEN IV

MY GOD MART I AM SORRY
STP YOUR REASONING RE-
GARDING R3J RPT R3J IS PER-
FECTLY CORRECT STP GORLEY
ACTED WITHOUT MY KNOWL-
EDGE STP WE ARE IN MIDST
OF CHANGE OF ADMINISTRA-
TION HERE STP SOME CONFU-
SION STP YOU HAVE FULL AU-
THORITY STP DO WHAT YOU
WANT STP BEST OF LUCK AND
GOD BE WITH YOU STP STIN-
KO J J RYSTENKO OPCHIEF
GS

4-18-2308

Office of the Chief of Operations
Dear Mr. Secretary:

I have sent orders reinstating Gen-
eral Glick and giving him full au-
thority to take System R3J. Two pre-
vious attempts to take the only planet
in the system that possesses quadrite
have failed, with no survivors return-
ing; but it is worth trying.

Rystenko

(Reply requested immediately)

4-18-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
General Rystenko:

That is fine. What about my ques-
tions concerning Colonel Gorley?

J. Cordovan

4-18-2308

Office of the Chief of Operations
Dear Mr. Secretary:

Colonel Gorley was sent here by
the former President. He acted in an

THE PRISONER

127

advisory and liaison capacity between
this office and that of the former
President. I know his action in this
instance has proved to be unfortu-
nate, but he was entirely justified by
regulations covering the situation. I
was with the President at the mo-
ment, and immediate action was nec-
essary to maintain the balance of the
situation.

Respectfully,

J. J. Rystenko
Chief of Operations

(Reply requested immediately)

4 - 18-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
General Rystenko:

Do you mean that Gorley advised
the former President on matters of
defense ?

J. Cordovan
4 - 18-2308

Office of the Chief of Operations
Mr. Secretary:

That is what I mean. Yes.

J. J. Rystenko
Chief of Operations

4 - 18-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
Bart:

I am enclosing some correspond-
ence between myself and Rystenko,
regarding a Colonel Q. L. Gorley
who has just taken a step I regard
as well calculated to throw our de-
fense arrangements off balance at the
decisive moment. I am enclosing the
dispatch referred to. You will note
that Rystenko takes a progressively

128

stiffer tone in protecting Gorley. Per-
sonally, I think if Gorley was defense
advisor to the previous Administra-
tion, he must be no good.

Jim

*

(Reply requested today)

4 - 18-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
Comptroller of the Records:

I would like a digest of all perti-
nent data in the service record of
Colonel Q. L. Gorley, now attached
to the, office of the Chief of Opera-
tions.

James Cordovan
Secretary for Defense

4 - 18-2308

Office of the President

Jim:

I have been in office three days and
it feels like three years, all thanks
to the miserable defense picture. If
you think Gorley is no .good, select
some distant and unimportant aster-
oid and put him in charge of it.
Don’t bother me with this trivia.

Bart

P. S. The time on this dispatch from
Gorley to Glick is 1100. Rystenko
was not with me then.

4 - 19-2308

Comptroller of the Records
Dear Mr. Secretary:

I have been able to ascertain that
there is a Colonel Q. L. Gorley at-
tached to the Chief of Operations
office, but the Master Recorder mere-
ly remains blank when I try to obtain
his service record. No Colonel Q. L.

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

Gorley is listed in the Officers’ Regis-
try. There is a Q. S. Gorley, Captain,
now serving with the Tenth Fleet,
and a Brigadier General Mason Gor-
ley, Ret’d. Upon code-checking the
rolls of the National Space Academy
at Bristol Bay, I find no mention of
any Q. L. Gorley within the last
hundred years.

It is possible to bar access to the
service record . of any individual if
the President or Secretary for De-
fense approves the action. But this
is not the case here. There simply
is no record. Do you wish me to
cross-check the coded Administration
records of the past few years to see
if any mention is made of this man
in these records?

Respectfully,

Ogden Mannenberg
Comptroller of the Records

(Reply requested today)

4-19-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
Comptroller of the Records:

Yes, by all means cross-check the
administrative records back to the
time Gorley was first mentioned.

James Cordovan
Secretary for Defense

(Immediate Action) 4-19-2308
Office of the Secretary for Defense
Birdie:

Get down to the Chief of Opera-
tions’ office and play the part of the
Undersecretary getting acquainted
with the team. Find out all you can
about a Colonel Q. L. Gorley, who
is now attached to the Opchief’s

office. Gorley appears to have no
service record and I am a little curi-
ous about him.

Jim

ROUTINE 04-19-2308-2300TCT
STAFF

COMGEN IV TO OPCHIEF GS
CAPITOL

FLEET IV NOW BASED ON SEC-
OND RPT SECOND PLANET OF
SYSTEM CODE R3J RPT R3J STP
SB BEING PLACED NOW STP
ADVANCE HENKEL SPHERE-
PERIMETER BEING HEAVILY
REINFORCED STP BULK OF
FLEET IV NOW MOVING TO
OCCUPY FIFTH RPT FIFTH
PLANET OF SYSTEM CODE R3J
RPT R3J

ROUTINE 04- 19-2308-23 14TCT

PERSONAL

COMGEN IV TO OPCHIEF GS
CAPITOL

STINICO I HAVE OCCUPIED
THE SECOND PLANET OF R3J
RPT R3J AND FIND POPULACE
AND GOVERNMENT FRIENDLY -
AND EAGER TO HELP STP
THEY HAD CIVILIZATION
BASED ON FISSION FIVE HUN-
DRED YEARS AGO BUT THE
OUTS WENT THROUGH HERE
AND KNOCKED THEM INTO
A QUOTE PILE OF DUNG END
QUOTE STP THEY HAD SPACE
TRAVEL BUT KEPT AWAY
FROM FIFTH PLANET AS HAD
NO NEED FOR QUADRITE
WHICH IS ONLY ATTRACTION

THE PRISONER

129

STP ALL THEY CAN TELL ME
IS THAT ONE OF THEIR RELI-
GIOUS LEADERS PREDICTED
MY ARRIVAL AND SAID OF
THE FIFTH PLANET QUOTE HE
WHO WILL FEED ON IT SHALL
LIVE OF IT STP END QUOTE
SOUNDS GOOD STP AM ON
ROUTE NOW STP MART MAR-
TIN M GLICK COMGEN IV

4-19-2308

Office of the Undersecretary for
Defense

Jim:

I have covered the situation for
you down at the Opchief’s office, and
I am sure you must be mistaken
about Colonel Gorley. He seems
straightforward and solid, and ex-
plained the defense setup to me in
such a way that for the first time it
made sense to me. I can think of no
one we might pick who would make
a better advisor to the President on
military matters. As for Colonel Gor-
ley having no service record, the
idea is fantastic. Several of the offi-
cers present spoke familiarly to Gor-
ley of events which happened while
he and they were at Bristol Bay to-
gether in their Academy days. It
could hardly be a case of mistaken
identity. Colonel Gorley is a very
striking man, very compact and mus-
cular — a very powerful, magnetic,
dynamic type. He has peculiarly keen
intelligent eyes, and an incisive, clear
positive manner of speaking. Per-
sonally, I think that instead of in-
vestigating Gorley, we should raise

130

him to high rank and get a little
decision into the war effort.

Birdie

P.S. The only thing resembling criti-
cism I have heard of Gorley was a
joking reference that he has a fero-
cious appetite and has to diet con-
stantly to keep his weight down.
Surely you won’t hold this against
him.

ROUTINE 04-20-2308-0756TCT
STAFF

COMGEN IV TO OPCHIEF GS
CAPITOL

ADVANCE ELEMENTS FLEET IV
HAVE LANDED ON PLANET
FIVE RPT FIVE OF SYSTEM
CODE R3J RPT R3J STP NO OP-
POSITION STP ONLY INHABI-
TANTS APPEAR TO BE GRAZ-
ING ANIMALS OF INTERMEDI-
ATE SIZE

4-20-2308

Comptroller of the Records
Dear Mr. Secretary:

I list below in chronological order
the portions of past Administrative
records apparently referring to Colo-
nel Q. L. Gorley:

4- 25-2304 . . . Thank you so much
for sending me Colonel Gorley. The
defense position is more clear to
me . . .

President to Opchief

5- 4-2304 ... I approve the new plan
of dynamic containment. I was a bit
uncertain as to the effect this would
have should the enemy renew offen-
sive action, but Colonel Gorley has
assured me it will be possible to

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

concentrate reserves quickly. On this
basis, I approve the plan. Certainly
■it seems much less risky . . .

President to Opchief
2-23-2305 ... I do not understand
your difficulties in repelling the latest
enemy attack. What exactly has hap-
pened here? Why were you not able
to concentrate your reserves quickly
enough to prevent the enemy from
traversing the whole length and
breadth of the system and leaving
a trail of ruin behind him such as
we have not seen in twenty years of
warfare? Who ordered these cuts in
production? What do you mean you
cannot replace the losses? I have no
memory of these Executive Orders
you speak of, or of any Colonel Gor-
ley. Send this man to me immedi-
ately, or better yet, come yourself . . .

President to Opchief
2-24-2305 . . . Colonel Gorley has
explained the matter to me satisfac-
torily. Of course it is unfortunate,
but these things happen . . .

President to Opchief
6-1-2305 . . . Colonel Gorley will
explain to you the recommended new
cuts in the defense budget. The im-
proved foreign situation makes these
cuts possible . . .

Opchief to President
4-2-2306 . . . Rystenko, these losses
are horrible. Why has this thing hap-
pened twice? The purpose of censor-
ship is not to hold the people in
ignorance and hide the festering
wounds from view. The point of
censorship is to keep information
from the enemy and to prevent over-
violent public reaction to unimpor-

tant temporary reversals. But these
disasters are not unimportant! They
are terrible defeats! I find your re-
action grossly inadequate. Who is
this Gorley you are sending to me,
as if this would correct the situa-
tion? . . .

President to Opchief
4-4-2306 . . . Colonel Gorley has
explained the matter to me satisfac-
torily. I see now clearly it was bound
to happen in this phase of our de-
fensive effort . . .

President to Opchief
6-2-2306 ... I approve the new
defense budget, as explained to me
by Colonel Gorley. I am, of course,
pleased though surprised that you can
now give us more defensive power
at lower cost. Please check this- and
be sure that the situation has stabi-
lized to this extent . . .

President to Opchief
6-6-2306 . . . That Colonel Gorley
be attached to my office until these
complex arrangements are com-
pleted . . .

President to Opchief
6-7-2306 . . . We will miss Gorley,
but are sure he will prove as helpful
to you as to us . . .

Opchief to President

9- 15-2306 . . . The food must be
much better here than in your mess.
Poor Gorley has to go on another
diet . . .

President to Opchief

10- 23-2306 ... I am very sorry to
have to bother you with these petty
trivialities, Mr. President, but they
may prove vital. I can’t send men
to Cryos with such inadequate equip-

THE PRISONER

131

nie at as this budget allows for. This
one trivial substitution of separate
interliners and thin semi-detached
boots may cost a delay of up to ten
minutes when the men go into action.
This equipment has already proved
itself worthless. I will gladly consider
Colonel Gorley’s suggestions, but this
matter was disposed of years ago.
I have also discovered several other
aspects of our present arrangements
which make me extremely uneasy . . .

Opchief to President
10-25-2306 ... I have talked with
Colonel Gorley and can see that these
plans are perfectly suited to the situ-
ation. Perhaps he could remain with
our office for some time till these
other matters are ironed out . . .

Opchief to President
4-15-2307 . . . Poor Gorley is on a
diet again . . .

Opchief to President
4-16-2307 . . . Who? Gorley? Am
I acquainted with the man ? . . .

President to Opchief
4-29-2307 . . . Terribly shaken by
this hideous disaster. Why has this
happened to us when our arrange-
ments were supposed to be invulner-
able? The enemy has torn your battle
line like tissue paper. Why are we
so weak everywhere? Your talk of
"elastic counter-defensive’’ makes no
sense to me whatever. If these fleets
were held concentrated at one cen-
tral point instead of strewn all over
the universe, we could return the
blow. What do you mean by offering
to send "Colonel Gorley” to me? If
any personal explaining is to be
done, you will come yourself, not

132

send a stooge. Make out immediate-
ly a list of all requirements needed
to correct this hideous situation.

President to Opchief
4-30-2307 ... I see now. Gorley
has explained it all to me . . .

President to Opchief
Note: These are all the direct refer-
ences made to Colonel Q. L. Gorley
in the Administration records. Would
you like me to cross-check the De-
partmental records?

Respectfully,

Ogden Mannenberg
Comptroller of the Records

4-20-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
Comptroller of the Records:

Thank you. These references are
amply sufficient for the present.

James Cordovan
Secretary for Defense

4-20-2308

Office of the President

Jim:

I have now absorbed the substance
of the report Rystenko sent you con-
cerning our defenses, and which you
forwarded to me. I have slept on it,
and thought of it when I was not
otherwise occupied. It seems to me:
1) This policy of locating the main
bulk of our fleet in a thin shell
around the periphery offers us about
as much defense as an eggshell does
to an egg. 2) Since in the present
arrangement the fleet does not en-
gage, it is worth no more than so
many civilian ships. 3) Therefore,
let us draw all the fleet to the center

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

(with the possible exception of
Glick’s IVth, which is actively oc-
cupied), and replace it around the
periphery with civilian ships and
crews to service the layers of Henkel
spheres. Enough men could be left
behind to train these crews, but no
more.

My final observation is that every-
thing I have said so far is fairly ob-
vious, therefore why hasn’t Rystenko
carried it out on his own? He im-
pressed me very favorably in our
interview, but further consideration
leads me to think he may be one of
these men who expend their sense
on the package instead of the con-
tents. I am going to talk to him
again, and would like your view of
the subject.

Bart

4 - 20-2308

Office of the President
General Rystenko:

I want to see you within the next
hour regarding the overall strategy
of the war effort, regarding the pres-
ent recruitment and material replace-
ment situation, and regarding the
present arrangements for advance-
ment of high officers.

Barton Baruch

4 - 20-2308

Office of the Chief of Operations
Dear Mr. President:

I shall be at your office at 3:00
p.m. if this is agreeable to you. As
it happens, my aide, Colonel Q. L.
Gorley, left my office a short while
ago to bring you some important

THE PRISONER

133

data sheets. I am sure you will find
him most helpful also on these other
matters if you choose to consult him.
Respectfully,

J. J. Rystenko
Chief of Operations

4-20-2308

Office of the President

Jim:

I have just had a very illuminating
talk with General Rystenko’s aide,
Colonel Gorley, and he has very
clearly explained the logic of the
present defense setup to me. I am
sending him along to brief you. He
is a most capable man, and I am
sure you will profit by contact with
him.

Bart

VITAL 04-20-2308-1654TCT
STAFF

COMGEN IV TO ALL STATIONS
U EXPLOSION D280L564V193
U EXPLOSION D280L562V193
U EXPLOSION D280L560V193
U EXPLOSION D280L562V195
U EXPLOSION D280L562V19I
EXPLOSIONS SIMULTANEOUS
TIME OF OBSERVATION 04-20-
2308-1646TCT

VITAL TRANSMIT TRIPLE AT
TEN-MINUTE INTERVALS

4-20-2308

Office of the Undersecretary for
Defense

Jim:

Colonel Gorley is out here cool-
ing his heels in the anteroom. He
is here at the President’s personal

134

order, and yet when the receptionist
tries to let him in, your door is lock-
ed. Have you turned childish?

Birdie

4-29-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
Birdie:

Who is Gorley ? Is he the one who
made the fuss removing a general
yesterday or the day before? If he
has anything from the President, he
can leave it outside. If he wants to
see me, he can make an appointment
for tomorrow. I am working my way
through a pile of business as high as
your head, and I do not want to be
disturbed till I am finished. Say,
while he is out there, pump him dis-
creetly about Rystenko. See if you can
find out whether the Opchief used
Gorley for a cat's-paw in trying to
get rid of that general . . . what’s his
name? . . . Glick.

Jim

4-20-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
Chief Dispatcher:

Send the following:

VITAL 04-20-2308-1621TCT PER-
SONAL

DEFSEC CAPITOL TO COMGEN
GR CAPITOL

REPLY IMMEDIATELY YOUR
OPINION WILL PRESENT DE-
FENSES REPEL ENEMY ATTACK
OF MAGNITUDE SIMILAR TO
THAT EXPERIENCED LAST
THREE YEARS STP REPLY IM-
MEDIATELY CATEGORY VITAL
TO DEFSEC CAPITOL THROUGH

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

CHIEF DISPATCHER STP THIS
INQUIRY AND REPLY CONFI-
DENTIAL STP JAMES CORDO-
VAN DEFSEC CAPITOL

(Reply requested immediately)

4-20-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
Comptroller of the Records:

Find out for me what happened
to the body of the enemy captured
after a dogfight in which Colonel
A. C. Nielson was killed.

James Cordovan
Secretary for Defense

VITAL 04-20-2308-1 64-2TCT PER-
SONAL

COMGEN GR CAP TO DEFSEC
CAP THRU CHIEF DISPATCH-
ER CONFIDENTIAL
MY OPINION PRESENT DE-
FENSES WILL COLLAPSE IF
ENEMY ATTACKS WITH SAME
STRENGTH AS FORMERLY STP
OR WITH ANYTHING LIKE
SAME STRENGTH AS FORMER-
LY STP VERNON L HAUSER
COMGEN GR CAPITOL

4-20-2308

Comptroller of the Records
Dear Mr. Secretary:

The body of the captured enemy
was brought here under refrigeration,
to be examined by physicians and
chemists. It arrived at night and was
placed, still in its box, in a small
room off the autopsy room. The
intern on duty ordered the lid of the
box pried up, examined the remains,
and noted that the object within

THE PRISONER

appeared to be in a state of advanced
decomposition, with, however, very
little odor. The room was refriger-
ated, and next day the surgeons en-
tered to carry out a preliminary ex-
amination, and upon raising the lid
found nothing within but a quantity
of water, some of which had seeped
out through the sides of the box.

The above summary is condensed
from voluminous reports on the oc-
currence, and equally voluminous re-
ports attempt to explain the matter,
but the substance of these latter re-
ports is that the authorities do not
know what happened.

Respectfully,

Ogden Mannenberg
Comptroller of the Records

(Reply requested immediately)

4-20-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
Comptroller of the Records:

Send me a summary of the physical
characteristics of the captured enemy
during life.

James Cordovan
Secretary for Defense

4-20-2308

Office of the Undersecretary for
Defense

Jim:

Colonel Gorley was ordered by
the President to see you now, today.
Why try to put him off till tomorrow ?
You can get back to your work after
he has a few minutes to deliver his
message.

Birdie

135

4-20-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
Birdie:

I am snowed under. Tomorrow.

Jim

4-20-2308

Comptroller of the Records
Dear Mr. Secretary:

The captured enemy is described
as having during life the following
physical characteristics: a) human
form; b) extremely compact and
muscular physique; c) peculiar keen
sharp eyes; d) very great recupera-
tive power.

Respectfully,

Ogden Mannenberg
Comptroller of the Records

4-20-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
Chief Dispatcher:

Send the following:

VITAL 04-20-2308-1708TCT PER-
SONAL

DEFSEC CAP TO COMGEN GR
CAP CONFIDENTIAL
REPLY IMMEDIATELY
THROUGH CHIEF DISPATCHER
YOUR OPINION ON OUTCOME
OF COMING ENEMY ATTACK
IF ALL OUR FORCES NOW CON-
CENTRATED AT CENTRAL
POINT LEAVING SMALL
TRAINING CADRES AND CIVIL-
IANS TO MAINTAIN HENKEL
SPHERE DEFENSES STP REPLY
CONFIDENTIAL CATEGORY VI-
TAL STP JAMES CORDOVAN
DEFSEC CAPITOL

136

VITAL 04-20-2308-17I4TCT PER-
SONAL

COMGEN GR CAP TO DEFSEC
CAP THRU CHIEF DISPATCH-
ER CONFIDENTIAL
MY OPINION OUR CHANCES
GOOD STP THIS IS FIRST SEN-
SIBLE PLAN TO COME OUT OF
CAP IN FOUR YEARS STP BUT
YOU WILL NEVER GET IT BY
RYSTENKO OR HIS CREATURE
GORLEY STP SEE GORLEY DOES
NOT GET TO PRESIDENT STP
GORLEY IS CLEVER MAN WITH
THE BUTTER KNIFE OR WHAT-
EVER HE USES STP MR SECRE-
TARY ONLY CHANCE YOUR
PLAN GETTING ACROSS IS TO
SEE PRESIDENT REMOVE RYS-
TENKO APPOINT ANYONE
WITH ALL HIS FACULTIES STP
ANY SANE MAN CAN SEE PLAN
NOW IN USE IS SUICIDE STP
VERNON L HAUSER COMGEN
GR CAP

4-20-2308

Office of the Undersecretary for
Defense

Jim:

Colonel Gorley was ordered to see
you by the President and he was
ordered to do it today. The colonel
is a very powerful and determined
man when his duty is at stake, Jim,
and I think it would be wise not to
get in his or the President’s way.
I say this as a friend, Jim. Gorley
is going to see you today.

Birdie

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

4-20-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
Birdie:

Why didn’t you tell me Gorley
was here at the direct order of the
President to see me today ? He can
see me when I am through, probably
about an hour-and-a-half from now,
or, as he would put it, about 1854
hours. Birdie, would you repeat what
you said about Colonel Gorley’s ap-
pearance? I think he reminds me of
someone I knew as a kid.

Jim

04-20-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
Chief Dispatcher:

Send the following:

VITAL 04-20-2308-1722TCT PER-
SONAL .

DEFSEC CAP TO COMGEN GR
CAP CONFIDENTIAL
REPLY IMMEDIATELY
THROUGH CHIEF DISPATCHER
STP SITUATION HERE HIGHLY
PRECARIOUS STP GORLEY HAS
ALREADY GOTTEN TO PRESI-
DENT AND USED WHATEVER
HE USES STP PRESIDENT NOW
CONVERTED STP GORLEY
AWAITING ME IN MY OUTER
OFFICE STP EAGER TO USE
WHATEVER HE USES STP MY
THOUGHT THAT ONLY SOLU-
TION IS THROW AWAY PRES-
ENT SITUATION AND START
ALL OVER STP INCIDENTALLY
WHY CAN I NOT PERSON-
ALLY ORDER REGROUPING
OF FORCES STP IS THERE
ANOTHER CAPITOL AS I

HAVE HEARD RUMORED ALL
SET UP WITH SKELETON
CREWS AND READY TO TAKE
OVER IF ANYTHING HAPPENS
TO PRESENT ONE STP WILL
YOU CONSENT TO ACT AS
OPCHIEF IF SO DIRECTED BY
ME STP I PROPOSE GIVE YOU
DIRECT ORDER TO PERFORM
VERY HAZARDOUS THANK-
LESS MISSION OF VITAL IM-
PORTANCE STP WILL YOU
OBEY IMMEDIATELY AND
WITHOUT QUESTION STP RE-
PLY IMMEDIATELY THROUGH
CHIEF DISPATCHER STP REPLY
CONFIDENTIAL CATEGORY VI-
TAL STP JAMES CORDOVAN
DEFSEC CAPITOL

VITAL 04-20-2 308-1 730TCT PER-
SONAL

COMGEN GR CAP TO DEFSEC
CAP THRU CHIEF DISPATCH-
ER CONFIDENTIAL
HOW DOES GORLEY DO IT STP
YES YOU CAN ORDER FORCES
DIRECT BUT WHAT GOOD IF
PRESIDENT COUNTERMANDS
STP YES AUXILIARY CAP EX-
ISTS READY TO TAKE OVER
STP BUT IF WE LOSE THE PRES-
ENT CAP THRU ENEMY AC-
TION IT WILL BE BECAUSE OF
GREAT WEAKNESS AND THERE
WILL BE LITTLE FOR AUX CAP
TO DO BUT SIGN SURRENDER
STP YES I WILL BE OPCHIEF IF
YOU SO ORDER STP I WILL
FOLLOW ORDERS REGARDLESS
HAZARD OR THANKLESSNESS
STP I WILL ACT IMMEDIATELY

THE PRISONER

137

WITHOUT QUESTION STP BUT
I CAN FOLLOW YOUR ORDERS
ONLY IF NOT COUNTER-
MANDED BY HIGHER AU-
THORITY THAT IS THE PRESI-
DENT STP VERNON L HAUSER
COMGEN GR CAP

4-20-2308

Office of the Undersecretary for
Defense

Jim:

Come off it, fellow. You can’t
expect a man like Colonel Gorley to
wait around in your outer office when
he is on a mission direct from the
President. As for Colonel Gorley’s
appearance, as I said before, the
colonel is a splendid figure of a man,
very compact and muscular, with
peculiarly keen sharp eyes. Eyes in-
dicative, I might add, of great force
of character, and you are standing in
this man’s way and the President’s.
Colonel Gorley says he thinks it is
"unlikely” you knew him as a child.
He came from a place where as a
child he didn’t ever have enough to
eat, which explains his periodic little
indulgences in food. He is angry
with you, Jim, and he is close to the
President. I don’t think he will wait
much longer, Jim, when it is his
duty to see you. Wake up, Jim.

Birdie

4-20-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
Chief Dispatcher:

Send the following:

VITAL 04-20-2308-1734TCT PER-
SONAL

DEFSEC CAP TO COMGENS ALL
SECTORS

EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY
GENENERAL J J RYSTENKO IS
REMOVED RPT REMOVED
FROM POST AS OPCHIEF GS
STP EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL VER-
NON L HAUSER COMGEN GR
IS APPOINTED RPT APPOINTED
OPCHIEF GS STP I HAVE FULL
AND COMPLETE CONFIDENCE
IN GENERAL HAUSER STP ANY
DELAY IN CARRYING OUT
GENERAL HAUSER’S ORDERS
IN THE UNUSUAL CIRCUM-
STANCES ABOUT TO OCCUR
WILL BE A DIRECT THREAT TO
THE SECURITY OF THE RACE
STP IN THESE TIMES STEADI-
NESS AND INSTANT OBEDI-
ENCE TO ORDERS ARE THE VI-
TAL QUALITIES STP GOD BE
WITH YOU AND HOLD YOU
STEADY AGAINST THE FOE
STP JAMES CORDOVAN DEF-
SEC CAPITOL

VITAL 04-20-2308- 1735TCT
STAFF

DEFSEC CAPITOL TO ALL STA-
TIONS

FOR YOUR INFORMATION EX-
PERIENCE WITH ENEMY CAP-
TIVE HERE SUGGESTS OUTS
POSSESS GREAT HYPNOTIC
POWERS AT CLOSE RANGE STP
ADVISABLE TAKE NO PRISON-
ERS

VITAL 04-20-2308-1736TCT PER-
SONAL

133

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

DEFSEC CAPITOL TO COMGEN
GR CAPITOL

DIRECT ORDER YOU DESTROY
RPT DESTROY CAPITOL RPT
CAPITOL AT EARLIEST POSSI-
BLE MOMENT CONSISTENT
WITH SAFETY OF FORCES UN-
DER YOUR COMMAND STP
THEN CONCENTRATE MAIN
FORCES AS YOU THINK AD-
VISABLE STP JAMES CORDO-
VAN DEFSEC CAP

4-20-2308

Office of the Undersecretary of
Defense

Jim:

You have gone a little too far in
defying Colonel Gorley and the
President, and Colonel Gorley has
decided to wait no longer in per-
forming his duty. He is coming in
to see you now, Jim; door or no door.

Birdie

4-20-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
Birdie:

Tell Colonel Gorley I have a serv-
ice revolver in my hand and am only
too eager to test Gorley’ s fantastic
recuperative powers against this and
one other weapon. Go after him and
tell him this.

Jim

ROUTINE 04-20-2308-1700TCT
STAFF

COMGEN IV TO OPCHIEF GS
CAPITOL

OCCUPATION OF PLANET FIVE

*

RPT FIVE COMPLETE STP NO
RPT NO OPPOSITION STP NO
RPT NO INDICATION OF PRE-
VIOUS ATTEMPTS TO TAKE
PLANET STP HUGE RESERVES
OF QUADRITE STP MINING
NOW UNDERWAY

4-20-2308

Office of the Undersecretary for
Defense

Jim:

What do you mean? What is
going on here ? May I go home, Jim ?
I feel strange.

Birdie

4-20-2308

Office of the Secretary for Defense
Birdie:

Thank you for sending Colonel
Gorley in to me. He has explained
our defense setup to me most clearly.

Jim

VITAL 04-20-230S-1750TCT
STAFF

COMGEN GR CAP TO ALL STA-
TIONS

U EXPLOSION CAPITOL
U EXPLOSION CAPITOL
U EXPLOSION CAPITOL
U EXPLOSION CAPITOL
U EXPLOSION CAPITOL
EXPLOSIONS RAPID SUCCES-
SIVE NOT BY ENEMY ACTION
TIME OF OBSERVATION 04-20-
2308-1 746TCT

VITAL TRANSMIT TRIPLE AT
TEN-MINUTE INTERVALS

THE END

THE PRISONER

139

BY P. SCHUYLER MILLER

FUTURES

We — and by "we” I mean the
entire science fiction-fantasy world,
editors, writers, artists, fen/fenne,
and a few nuts — have a kind of
vested interest in the future. We’ve
played with most of the possible and
a great many frankly impossible vari-
ants, some seriously, some nonsensi-
cally, some just for the sake of play-
ing. It’s interesting, therefore, to see
what happens when from time to
time some respected figure from the
scientific or political world wanders
into our range and tries his hand at
prognostication.

140

Latest of the lot is an unassuming
little book from Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, "The Foreseeable Future,”
by Sir George Thomson, the British'
physicist whose work on quantum
mechanics won him the Nobel Prize
in Physics (1937, shared with C. J.
Davisson). Its 166 pages will cost
you $2.50.

Sir George, I take it, is conserva-
tive in matters of physics. I base my
opinion on his passing comment on
fundamental particles: he is still

plumping for three, electrons, protons
and neutrons — with misgivings about
the third — in spite of the bewilder-
ing prefusion of pions, muons, bar-

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

THE REFERENCE LIBRARY

yons, hyperons, et al in the current
literature. Presumably he believes that
all these highly un-elementary ele-
mentary particles will eventually be
shaken down into special fabrications
of simple plus and minus. You will
probably consider him conservative
in most of his predictions. But there
are some surprises in what he has
to say . . .

One novelty, by the way, is the
approach to science ,which Sir George
expresses in his introductory chapter.
This is the point that scientific prin-
ciples are frequently what he calls
"principles of impotence” which say
that certain things cannot be done,
rather than setting forth what can.
Thus the law of conservation of
energy /matter; thus Einstein’s con-
cept of the limiting velocity of light;
thus Heisenberg’s uncertainty princi-
ple and Pauli’s exclusion principle.
Sir George discusses seven in all.

Energy and power are considered
first. The author is rather optimistic
about the length of time our oil and
coal reserves will last, and does not
make as much as he might of the
social and the economic aspects of
the coal problem: sitting in the
midst of the bituminous fields, I see
prospecting turn up new resources
every day while whole towns sit hun-
gry because the mines are closed.
Some principles emerge, which are
not exactly novel to readers of this
magazine: solar energy and nuclear
energy can be adequate, but can’t be
used until the cost of other sources,
especially fossil fuels, has become
prohibitive. And the greatest need

THE REFERENCE LIBRARY

of all is something John Campbell
was urging on the world years ago
— a really good energy-storage device
or accumulator.

I am interested to find Sir George
still urging a nice little wood fire for
much domestic heating (provided,
of course, that we begin to harvest
our forests intelligently) : is it the
British as opposed to the American-
central-heating point of view that
comments: "if heat is only required
in a particular room for half an hour
a day it (electrical heating) is an
excellent method.”

There are some interesting ideas
in the chapter on materials, princi-
pally the suggestion that it may be
possible to increase the tensile
strength of common metals by a
factor of a hundred by learning to
eliminate the minute flaws in their
crystal structure at which shear and
slippage begin, and to control molec-
ular forces and structure in a way
that will give us ethereal spiderweb
cities and bridges.

Speaking of ether, Sir George is
also an ether — -or "aether” — partisan,
as is made clear in his chapter on
transport and communications. Con-
servative or not, he has evidently
traveled enough by air to feel strong-
ly about the situation in which you
spend more time getting to and from
the airport than you do in the air
between cities. He has hopes for
trains, seems to have no idea at all
of the American long-haul truck-
and-turnpike movement, and is not
impressed by the helicopter-for-
everyone propaganda. He sees a

141

practical limit to trans-Atlantic flights
at a speed (Mach 3) which gives a
crossing in an hour and a half, and
six hours for a trip halfway around
the world (the farthest you’ll ever
have to go in a hurry: remember the
old one about how far will a dog
run into the woods?). But I think
you’ll get a real surprise in Sir
George’s reasoning that a large sub-
marine can travel economically at
higher speeds — seventy to eight}'
knots — than a surface ship. As for
interplanetary and interstellar flight,
you’ll take heart from his simple and
serious discussion and his optimism
about such things as ionic rockets,
travel at a fair-sized fraction of the
speed of light, and the use of the
anti-nrotons (Seetee matter) whose
discovery was generally announced
this week.

"A visit to the stars is not im-
minent.” concludes Sir George, "but
we may well be nearer to it than we
are to Pekin man.” And that , good
friends, is on the order of half a
million years.

I won’t try to summarize any more
of Sir George’s predictions. They
cover meteorology, food, applications
of biology — controlled mutation —
mechanization, education and cyber-
netics. "More sober than science
fiction," the jacket says. It is sober,
but it’s a little startling to see some
of our allegedly wild ideas treated
seriously.

One of Sir George’s points in his
discussion of climate control is that
whereas the weather involves energy

exchanges vaster than anything men
have ever handled — the energy of
three thousand Hiroshima bombs in
one "decent-sized” storm — meteor-
ology is uncovering the importance
of triggering reactions which may set
long, complicated processions of ac-
tion and reaction to moving. The
same argument is used by Dr. Wil-
liam Lee Stokes of the University of
Utah, in an article, "Another Look
at the Ice Age,” in the latest — Octo-
ber 28th — issue of the weekly maga-
zine Science. The same issue has
some correspondence on the expand-
ing population vs. limited resources
question treated here last spring in
Donald Kingsbury’s article "The
Right to Breed.”

Granted, Dr. Stokes’ "trigger” is
a little more impressive than seeding
a cloud to make it rain or — Thomson
— controlling local climate by plant-
ing and flooding. It is a siege of
mountain-building, which he sug-
gests may set off a tricky and para-
doxical oscillation controlled by the
temperature and rate of heat-loss
from the oceans.

It works roughly like this (and
anyone can read the article) : when
the continents, or some part of them,
are elevated substantially as they
were beginning in the Cretaceous,
they eventually reach a height where
the young mountains support year-
round snowfields and glaciers as do
the higher ranges today. These cool
both the air that blows over them
and the streams that flow down from
them. The sea gradually begins to
cool; after a while pack-ice can form

142

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

and persist in the polar regions, and
this increases the cooling effect since
it reflects rather than absorbs the
sun’s heat. With the worldwide cool-
ing of the seas, evaporation is re-
duced and with it precipitation —
since there is less moisture in the air
to fall as rain or snow. Result: at
the end of this phase, the glaciers
waste away again and there is wide-
spread aridity — but the sea has been
chilled.

With Phase Two, we have a bare,
arid land surface and a cold-water
reservoir in the seas. The sun beats
down, the land grows hotter and
drier, rivers begin to run wanner
and warmer — though precipitation
has fallen off — and the polar ice
probably disappears completely. Dr.
Stokes suggests that we are in this
phase now, with the glacial minimum
during the "climatic optimum” of
4500-2500 B.C. The polar ice may
eventually disappear in a single sea-
son, he suggests, and the climatic
zones and weather pattern shift pole-
ward.

In Phase Three, the oceans have
warmed up to the point where evap-
oration drops more moisture on the
snowfields in winter than the sun
can melt away in the summer — and
the glaciers begin to grow once more.
This is a rapidly accelerating process,
in the course of which the shallow
polar basin chills and freezes again,
the cooling slowly extends to the
seas, and the cycle has started around
again. It's not an overnight process:
Dr. Stokes suggests something of the
order of fifty thousand years to warm

THE REFERENCE LIBRARY

up the oceans, or possibly one hun-
dred thousand before the increased
evaporation from the warmer seas
has produced continental ice-sheets.
He also proposes that the peculiar
geography of North America, with
a wall of young mountains on the
west, . the shallow Polar Sea at the
north and the shallow, hot Gulf of
Mexico on the south, may have been
the heat-pump that set off the entire
worldwide Pleistocene glaciation.

And this combination of Thomson
and Stokes fits neatly into the thesis
behind H. Chandler Elliott’s excel-
lent new novel, "Reprieve from
Paradise” (Gnome, $3.00) which is
reviewed elsewhere in this issue. Al-
though they can’t have gotten to-
gether, Elliott is applying some of
Thomson’s proposals to Stokes’
ocean-control theory to produce a top-
notch story. Small planet, isn’t it?

Reprieve From Paradise, by H.

Chandler Elliott. Gnome Press,

New York. 1955. 256 pp. $3.00

If you're browsing in a bookstore,
don’t let one of Gnome Press’ most
confusing jacket blurbs put you off
one of their best novels.

The time is roughly two thousand
years from now. Our own Western
Society has brought itself down in
a wave of bombings, and Polynesian
missionaries have built up a new so-
ciety in which human breeding is
the Great Objective and human
feeding is the Great Profession.

140

Little by little the entire face of the
earth has been hammered, planed
and drilled into arable land for the
endless expanses of food plants. Ani-
mals and insects are gone; the seas,
however, still provide some food.
And in the packed Cities the Free-
men go through an unthinking mo-
notony of eating, living, amusement
and token work.

Our hero is Pahad tuan Konor, a
Freeman child who has been differ-
ent enough to be taken out of the
City and trained as a scientist —
until his individualism comes up
against the Heirarchy. His university
is to be overrun by fields unless he
makes good on his rash promise to
up food production one per cent in
five years . . . and he is promptly
diverted into a task which makes
it impossible for him to carry on the
necessary work. Then unforeseen
ramifications begin to turn up in what
he has considered a make-work job,
and presently he is bogged down in
both scientific and personal problems,
and uncovers what seems to be a
conspiracy to flood out the Race by
tipping the Earth’s axis, melting the
polar ice, and raising the seas to
flood the reclaimed lowlands which
grow Man’s food-margin.

Although long stretches of intro-
spective writing may make this novel
hard going for some readers, the
picture of a race breeding itself into
starvation is beautifully worked out,
the leading characters come to life,
and the conflicts of personality and
ethics are more important than slam-
bang battle. Pahad’s conversion to

144

the Rebel cause is logical and inevi-
table in a way that Mitch Courtenay’s,
in "The Space Merchants,” unfor-
tunately never was.

I don’t know whether H. Chandler
Elliott is a screen for a better known
name — whose style I certainly can’t
spot — or whether Marty Greenberg
is backing a complete dark horse. If
the latter is the case, I hope he runs
more often: I’ll know how to bet.

o<rx>

Galaxy of Ghouls, edited by

Judith Merril. Lion Library, New

York. 1955. 192 pp. 35 i

If you like fantasy at all, especially
of the tricked up Unknoivn-F&SF
style, you won’t want to miss this,
and in any case a few items are
straight, good science fiction: Wil-
liam Tenn’s "Child’s Play,” for ex-
ample, which is the story of the
man who got hold of a Bild-a-Man
set from 2162 A.D., and Clifford
Simak’s "Desertion,” which is the
emotional peak of the man-and-dog
series unified in his award-winning
"City” (here in 1952). Anthony
Boucher’s very short "The Ambas-
sadors” is a logical and literal sequel
to his classic "Compleat Werewolf”
from Unknown. Fritz Leiber’s "The
Night He Cried” is the now classic
take-off of Mickey Spillane which
first appeared in Ballantine’s "Star
Science Fiction Stories,” and Robert
Sheckley’s "Proof of the Pudding”
is a nice last-man-with-ESP variant.

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

Frontiers of Astronomy, by Fred

Hoyle. Harper and Brothers, New

York. 1955. 360 pp. 111. $5.00

There hasn’t been an idea-genera-
tor for science fiction writers like this
book since the wonderful old days
of Jeans and Eddington, when we
first began to see past the Milky Way
into a universe of universes. How
sound it is, how commensurate with
other facts and theories in physics
and astronomy, how well it will stand
up to the research of the next few
years or decades, are all things I can’t
judge . . . but it carries the smooth
conviction of a good novel.

•Fred Hoyle — remember his "Na-
ture of the Universe” in 1951? — is
one of the storm-centers of present-
day science. In this book he sets
down his conviction that ours is a
universe infinite in time and space,
constantly renewed by a process in
which matter is born out of space,
coalesces into gas clouds, and con-
tinues to clot into swarms of galaxies,
star-streams, stars, and finally planets
and men. It is a dogmatic book,
though not a belligerent one: Floyle
states flatly that this and this are so,
hence these conclusions follow. I
know from other sources that his
fellow astronomers, physicists and
mathematicians by no means accept
his data or his chain of reasoning.

Hoyle’s basic premise, which will
be attractive to most science-fiction
readers, is that this is a universe of
strict and all-encompassing law, of
cause and effect, in which — if only
you know enough — the grand proces-

THE REFERENCE LIBRARY

sion of worlds follows inevitably
from the laws of physics and the
fact of matter. There is no place in
this universe, he insists, for chance,
for "accident.” If it had not been
said long before, he might have
argued that "God is a mathemati-
cian” — and one who uses Fred
Hoyle's equations. Yet it seems to
me that in his protesting he is basical-
ly inconsistent, for his universe of
law is built up from the quantum
and wave theories of atomic and
nuclear behavior, which depend very
heavily on probability mathematics,
so that "accident” is at the very root
of all his argument.

There is another basic flaw in the
book, which may only be a question
of approach to a lay public. All the
plausible, smoothly meshed evolu-
tionary structure from dust to worlds
is presented qualitatively in about the
way a writer for this magazine might
set it down in a story. It is rarely
clear whether Hoyle is saying: "This
ought to happen if this is true,” or
whether he means "Mathematically
this follows if this is true.”

The book is too full to describe.
It progresses step by step from the
structure of the Earth to its origins,
then to those of the solar system,
the Sun and other stars, the Galaxy
and swarms of galaxies, coming final-
ly to Hoyle’s concept of continuous
creation and a self-regenerating/ex-
panding universe. He gets across to
me, for the first time, a plausible
reason why the universe seems to be
expanding on the large scale but not
in local concentrations of matter. At

145

the same time, a large horsefly enters
the ointment, which he does not ex-
plain away: instead he ignores it, and
in doing so, it seems to me, leaves
Relativity out of his scheme.

The catch comes in the new answer
to Olbers’ old, old paradox: why,
if the universe is infinite, is not the
sky one blaze of light from an in-
finity of stars? The answer, on the
basis of the expanding universe, is
that beyond a distance of about two
billion parsecs stars at the fringe of
the universe are receding from us at
the velocity of light, so that we can
never see them or anything beyond.
It seems to me that this begs a
mighty big question, on which
Hoyle’s whole structure may stand or
fall: for under Relativity the velocity
of light is a limit which cannot be
passed, at which the inertia of matter
becomes infinite. In nuclear experi-
ments, electrons have been projected
at high enough velocities so that
the effect has been seen and meas-
ured. So — what happens beyond two
billion parsecs, where galaxies should
be traveling away faster than light?
And especially, what is the gravita-
tional effect of this shell of infinite
mass? If it were homogeneous and
continuous, there would be no gravi-
tational field inside: that is elemen-
tary calculus. But it is neither, and
thereby arises an incongruity which
Mr. Hoyle should at least have men-
tioned.

Velikovsky followers, by the way,
may acclaim the book: Hoyle pro-
poses that the dust and sludge out
of which the planets formed — part

146

of a kind of ring spun out of the
shrinking Sun through the gravita-
tional pull of a nearby star — may
have included hydrocarbons, which
would coat the bits of rock with a
kind of asphalt, and glue them to-
gether when they chanced to collide.
On this theory, petroleum has its
origins at the same time as the planet
and is gradually working its way up
out of the depths. The ’quakes you
hear are geologists reading that chap-
ter. As an interesting corollary, Hoyle
suggests that life may go back to
these pre-planetary dust-cloud days.

By all means read the book: you
don’t have to believe it, but it paints
a fascinating picture whose composi-
tion is as simple as that of a space
opera.

(KTX)

The End of Eternity, by Isaac
Asimov. Doubleday & Co., Garden
City. 1955. 191 pp. $2.95

This is an excellent job for the
dyed-in-the-wool fan who likes. to see
what can be spun out of an unusual
scientific idea, but I’m afraid it is
a book which will confuse the neo-
phyte more than it entertains him.

"Eternity,” in Asimov’s concept, is
a kind of elevator shaft on the out-
side wall of Time, extending from a
level in the Twenty-seventh Century
up into the nearly infinite future.
Operating through Eternity is the
organization of the Eternals, traveling
up and down the shaft in their "ket-
tles” with administrative units in

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

every century. Peering out into "real”
Time, they have learned to watch for
and spot those crucial moments of
choice which deflect the future of the
human race, and to shape the future
by changing those choices and
throwing the probability of existence
to an alternative course in Time.

Andrew Harlan is a Technician,
whose job it is to make the actual
cause - and - effect transformations
which deflect the Timestream. He
falls in love with a non-Eternal
woman, kidnaps her into the far
future, then sets about tinkering with
the intricate inter-relationships of
Time and Eternity to cover up his
crime and regularize his affair. Only
Harlan soon , finds that he is a key
figure in a mysterious scheme which
the Council of the Eternals has
under way.

This is the kind of intricately
conceived and worked-out science
fiction like van Vogt’s "Null A” that
I personally like a lot. My one res-
ervation is that the story loses itself
in the mechanism.

<K=X)

Time Bomb, by Wilson Tucker.

Rinehart & Co., New York &

Toronto. 1955. 246 pp. $2.75

This is a kind of sequel to Tucker’s
"The Time Masters”- — though you’d
never learn it from the publisher — ■
which at the same time tries to be
a kind of temporal detective story. It
doesn’t quite succeed as either, and

THE REFERENCE LIBRARY

drops down somewhere near the bot-
tom of the list of Tucker books.

Somewhere not too far from now
the Illinois Security Police are
plagued with the problem of trying
to foresee and forestall a series of
strange bombings in and around Chi-
cago, which are eroding away the
upper echelons of the. dictatorial
Sons of America party. The Depart-
ment’s telepath, Mr. Ramsey, is no
help, and Lieutenant Danforth pres-
ently finds himself dealing with an
even queerer couple, Gilbert and
Shirley Nash, the nigh-immortals of
the earlier book. Finally it appears
that the only logical explanation
must be that the bombs are coming
out of Time: and how do you set
about detecting that kind of public
enemy?

Tucker’s considerable detectival
and science fictive talents haven’t
quite meshed here.

o<rr>D

Dome Around America, by Jack

Williamson.

The Paradox Men, by Charles L.

Harness. Ace Books, Inc., New

York. 1955. 187 + 133 pp. 35^

This Ace back-to-back adds a
rather inconsequential Williamson
short novel of 1941 vintage, whose
original name I can’t spot. It’s the
one in which North America, under
a force dome, preserves the water
and air which have been stripped off
the planet by a passing dwarf star.
Outside the Dome another vengeful

147

culture hangs on in isolated fortresses
and plots to destroy the Dome and
America. And our hero, a Ring
Guard, goes out into the airless sea
bottoms disguised as the agent he
has captured — while the agent es-
capes and follows.

"The Paradox Men” is a new name
for Harness’ "Flight Into Yesterday”
(Bouregy & Curl, 1953), the story
of a future society in which only the
Society of Thieves and its swashbuck-
ling head, Alar, uphold the lost prin-
ciples of freedom and individuality.

Pure action-adventure, both of ’em.

REPRINTS OF THE MONTH

THE CAVES OF STEEL, by Isaac
Asimov. Signet Books, New York.
1955. 189 pp. 35(t
Asimov Month among the paper-
backs begins with his successful blend

of science fiction with detection in
a world of robots and ruling Space-
men.

THE MAN WHO UPSET THE
UNIVERSE, by Isaac Asimov. Ace
Books, New York. 1955. 254 pp.
35(4

This is a new name for "Founda-
tion and Empire.” Ace published
"Foundation” as "The 1000 Year
Plan” in one of its Double . Books.
This, of course, is the section of the
epic dealing with the Mule.

DEEP SPACE, by Eric Frank Russell.
Bantam Books, New York. 1955.
165 pp. 25(4

You get only the eight short stories
from the Fantasy Press collection
which was a highlight of 1954. The
opening novelette of the hard-back
edition, "First Person Singular,” is
out. Same superb Mel Hunter cover
illo, though.

THE ANALYTICAL LABORATORY

( Continued from page 99)

Naturally, I’d like to have it a five-way battle royal, knock-down-drag-out
contest all the way, all the time. Well, they say heaven’s lovely too . . .
Anyway, here’s the score:

PLACE STORY

AUTHOR

POINTS

1. Call Him Dead (Pt. II)

Eric Frank Russell

1.19

2. The Gift of Gab

Jack Vance

2.04

3. Aspirin Won’t Help It

John A. Sentry

3.80

4. Blessed Are the Meek

G. C. Edmondson

3.85

5. Scrimshaw

Murray Leinster

3.89

The Editor.

148

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

BRASS

Editor’s Note: —

There have been many letters sug-
gesting methods of combating the
highway hypnosis problem suggested
in the article "Design Flaw”; I can-
not answer them all, nor can I pub-
lish all. But I can thank you for your
efforts. Many new specific instances
of highway-hypnosis type accidents
were reported; it is evident that con-
siderable thinking was done.

One basic type of suggested coun-
ter-agent appeared in many letters;
an automatic, randchn-timed warning
buzzer, hooter, or other signal device
which, if the driver did not take
some specific action, such as pressing
a reset button, would cut off igni-
tion, apply brakes, or the like.

This problem is tough — really
tough. These devices constitute a
deliberately installed irritant; it is
essentially similar to the idea of the
night-watchman’s one-legged stool.

TACKS

He falls off and is rudely awakened
if he falls asleep. But . . . will a
night-watchman buy such a stool for
himself ? Will a normal human being
go out of his way to install in his
car something deliberately designed
to be as irritating as possible?

Second; hypnosis is not sleep. A
man in hypnosis can carry out a com-
plex task with great skill . . . pro-
vided it is a routine task. It would
take a man about one hour’s expo-
sure to the mechanical irritator to
establish a habit-pattern response to
the warning hoot, or what-not. The
tremendous adaptability of a human
being is, in this instance, a tremen-
dous weakness. Once the automatic
warning gadget is handled by a habit-
pattern, hypnosis can set in, and the
habit-pattern will go right on reset-
ting the anti-hypnosis device!

Seemingly, the only sure test for
hypnosis is that a hypnotized human

BRASS TACKS

149

being does not have judgment. A
judicious human being can detect
lack of judgment; a machine, having
no judgment, cannot.

Until the nature of hypnosis itself
is fully elucidated, irritant devices
not under the voluntary control of
the driver seem to be necessary. Ex-
amples: interfering traffic, at fre-
quent intervals. Something that pro-
duces real insecurity in the driver’s
mind.

Which is, of course, precisely
what no human being thinks he
wants !

The Editor.

Dear Mr. Campbell:

The judgment and good taste you
evidence in selecting material for
publication has always made me re-
spect you. Your editorials have al-
ways made me admire you. After
reading of your fight for less murder-
ous highways, so that Joseph Kearney
and others like him may not have
died in vain, those feelings are
multiplied tenfold.

By way of sympathy I can only
offer you an idea. It may be valueless,
blit if you get enough ideas perhaps
some of them may in turn suggest
something that will be valuable.
How about colored concrete sections ?
It shouldn’t be too expensive, and
color researchers have long proclaim-
ed the psychological value of color.
Personally I have been impressed by
an awakened interest in the highway
in passing from one road district to

another where different materials
used changed the color of the high-
way.

My husband and I have felt for a
long time that modern cars and high-
way conditions call for the "two
heads are better than one” system
with the co-pilot taking an active
part in the driving. While the driver
behind the wheel has charge of the
car and most decisions, the person
on the right has charge of the maps
and is responsible for watching di-
rectional signs and signifying when
to turn into another highway. The
co-pilot also verifies potential hazards
such as livestock, farm implements,
small motorized units, vehicles ahead
which may be slowing or stopping,
vehicles at intersections — anything
which is or might get on the high-
way. The assistant on the right is in
a better position to spot a car in the
oncoming lane which might attempt
to pass without enough room and to
check for clearance on the right when
passing trucks on narrow roads or
when crossing narrow bridges.

When there is nothing about the
highway to comment on, from time
to time we talk about where we’re
headed or where we’ve been. And
if we run out of desultory conversa-
tion we sing. So far we’ve been lucky.
— Mrs. Tom E. Hille, 4803 Elgin
Avenue, Lubbock, Texas.

Railroads have tong had the "co-
engineer” verify the signal lights.
Most automobile drivers feel, at
present, that they are being sub-
jected to "back-seat driving” rath-

150

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

er than verification. A change in
that feeling might help a lot!

Dear Mr. Campbell:

Your article "Design Flaw” deals
with a problem, road hypnosis, with
which I am familiar. As a working
news photographer I have seen more
than one accident which could be
attributed to no other cause, and
then, too, I had one experience of
my own that I won’t soon forget.
I had been driving for some hours
when I came upon a car in my lane
which was not moving. Not only did
I not notice that it wasn't in mo-
tion, I didn't even see it. My wife,
whose reactions are as fast as mine
normally are, realized I didn't see the
car, shouted, and I applied the brakes
coming to a panic stop with my front
bumper lightly tapping the bumper
of the other car. I left skid marks for
over a hundred feet and could actual-
ly see smoke from burned rubber
drifting away from my car. Now as
to possible solutions to the problem
. . . there's no harm in letting- the
imagination roam freely and that's
what I’m going to do here.

In the first place I will take the
stand that it is impractical — at the
moment — to do anything about the
highways themselves and that there
must be some better way of dividing
the driver’s attention than peppering
the countryside with billboards. So
let’s deal with the obvious first: the
car radio. Does it help? It might
seem at first thought that the fixing

of attention visually could quite
overpower the sound from the speak-
er and cause it to recede into the
background along with other noises
. . . but can it? How passive is the
act of listening? Do you not take
some active part in nearly every radio
program, if only to damn it’s stupid-
ity? I don’t know, but according to
your pragmatic approach to the prob-
lem we should ask: In how many of
these highway deaths which might
be attributed to road hypnosis was
the car radio turned on?

Carrying this a step further, can
we increase participation in what
comes out of the speaker ? Sure, hams
do. They talk back. It’s highly effec-
tive, too. In many miles of operating
while driving I’ve never had the
problem of road hypnosis. Of course
every driver can’t have a ham ticket
but there’s the citizens’ band. And,
getting fanciful, suppose each car
had a transmitter and receiver on
fixed frequencies and that the State
Police and Turnpike authorities
maintained stations every few miles.
The motorists could get information
on traffic conditions, weather, warn-
ings from automatic radar units
coupled to transmitters, could ask
for directions or for help if they ran
out of gas. And station operators
would be encouraged to chat with
motorists whenever possible.

Next, we might consider some
method of warning the motorist in
time that he is creeping up on a
slower moving vehicle. The obvious
method would seem to be radar, ex-
cept that present sets are expensive

BRASS TACKS

151

and cause too much battery drain.
Eventually transisterized radar sets
might solve the second if not the first
of these problems. The warning sig-
nal could be some kind of a wavering
screech calculated to break up the
deepest hypnosis. This might keep
drivers from following too closely
on the tails of other drivers as well.
Another possible method might be
to place a parabolic microphone in
front of the car and feed its output
into an amplifier through some sort
of noise gate or adjustable squelch.
Most trucks make quite a racket and
as the motorist gets too close and the
squelch opens the racket in the
speaker might bring him out of his
trance. In any warning scheme, if
you figure that the motorist is over-
taking the slower moving vehicle at
fifteen to twenty miles an hour, not
too much warning would be neces-
sary, assuming normal reflexes. (Ac-
cording to your article we don’t have
to worry about those drivers who are
slow or stupid . . . they don’t hyp-
notize.)

Getting more fanciful as we go
along, we must consider that some
sort of instrument might be evolved
that could detect a hypnotic condi-
tion and actuate a warning device.
I don’t know about the physiological
evidences of a state of hypnosis, but
I know that it is supposed to be de-
tectible in brain-wave tracings on an
encephalograph.

So far we have considered preven-
tion of hypnosis by division of in-
terest, detection of the approach to
a slower moving vehicle, and direct

152

detection of a hypnotic state. One
other possibility which might merit
a lot of research is a direct medical
preventive of hypnosis. It may well
be that just as benzedrine and other
drugs help produce a concentrated
state which favors hypnosis, a drug
might be found which will make
hypnosis impossible without at the
same time producing any undesirable
effects which in other ways would
jeopardize the safety of the motorist.
— Lawrence F. Willard, Box 262,
Yalesville, Connecticut.

Radios do not seem to be of much
help, the pragmatic, trial-and-
error approach to a solution is
necessary — but must not be allow-
ed to make a fundamental attack
on "What is hypnosis’’ unneces-
sary.

Dear Mr. Campbell:

Your editorial, "Game Theory,’’
was quite good, as usual, and I agree
with most of it. However, I take
exception to part of your remarks
concerning the "chastisement’’ of
Einstein and Oppenheimer for ex-
pressing social opinions.

You say "The culture has clearly
expressed its extremely powerful
conviction that technicians must not
attempt to form social judgments.’’
I suggest that that is only half true;
it would be more accurate if instead
of "technicians” you say "people.”
In our society one is not supposed
to "form” social judgments; they are

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supplied ready-made. If one forms
his own judgments, it must be that
he does not accept the ready-made
ones of custom, and that is strictly
forbidden. Einstein, Oppenheimer,
and other scientists were not attacked
because they were scientists, nor be-
cause they expressed social opinions;
but rather because the opinions them-
selves were unpalatable. All promi-
nent people who state such opinions
are attacked, not just technicians.

You also remarked that when Ein-
stein tried to express some social
opinions, he was shushed as "incom-
petent to speak in a field he was not
expert in.” It is, of course, thorough-
ly wrong to hinder anyone from
speaking his mind, especially on So-
cial questions. But there is a small
kernel of sense in saying that Einstein
was incompetent to speak on politics.
That’s an exaggeration, of course;
he had as much right to make social
pronouncements as anyone else. But
he assuredly had no greater right,
nor should his opinions have met
with any special respect. When one
steps outside his field of professional
competence, his opinions deserve no
more consideration than anyone
else’s; one cannot logically bring in
his reputation as a physicist to sup-
port his views on any subject other
than physics. That a man is an expert
nuclear physicist does not mean that
he is ipso facto qualified to pro-
nounce on the sociopolitical phases
of nucleonics, any more than being
able to build a stove automatically
qualifies one to pass as a cook.

This, I think, brings me to the

154

question of whether scientists have
a special responsibility for the social
consequences of their work. I would
say that the scientist, as a scientist,
has no such responsibility. But the
scientist is also a citizen, a member
of society, and as such he does have
that responsibility. And so does every
other citizen. Those who say that
scientists have a special obligation to
control the social effects of science
are, in my opinion, just trying to
evade their own responsibilities as
citizens, by pushing the load off on
the scientists.

We are all responsible for such
things as the control and use of
atomic weapons. If, for example, it
was a crime to have dropped the
A-bombs on Japan, then the Presi-
dent was guilty for having ordered
it, the Congress was guilty for not
immediately impeaching the Presi-
dent, and the general populace was
guilty for not unseating the Congress.
That these things were not done
amounted to a tacit approval of the
bombings, and thereby we all became
accessories after the fact, each of us
with his full share of whatever guilt
there might be. In a democracy,
politics is everybody’s business, and
we can’t evade the responsibility by
foisting it off on scientists or any
other group. End of sermon. —
George W. Price, 519 East 4lst
Street, Chicago 15, Illinois.

If thinking and forming judgments
is a function, then some men can
become experts at that. Einstein,
l feel, was a wise thinker.

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{Continued from page 6)
elusion — and that leads to the inevi-
table difficulty of the confusion of
all non-science. The problem is per-
haps best expressed by the answer
sometimes given to the famous
"Alice” conundrum, "Why is a raven
like a writing desk?” Answer: Be-
cause you can’t ride either one like
a bicycle.

Now that answer is unarguably
true. Beyond question, a raven and
a writing desk do share that charac-
teristic. Of course everything in the
universe that isn’t a bicycle shares
the characteristic too, including
canoes, spaniel dogs, atomic bombs
and fountain pens. When you define
something by exclusion, you imme-
diately confuse it with everything
else that is excluded from the cate-
gory.

The consequence is that since
frauds, charlatans, crackpots, and
fools do not use honest, scientific
methods of work, they belong in the
category excluded from "honest sci-
entific researchers.” So, however,
does Buddha, Jesus, and President
Eisenhower. Both groups do not be-
long in the category of "honest sci-
entific researchers.” Both groups use
methods other than those used by
physicists in their laboratory work,
for example.

Yet it is evident from that strons

O

response that you, the readers, want
to know what honest non-sdenitfic
research is being done in the field
of psionics, and what is being ac-
complished.

I can obtain articles reporting on
such work; the work exists, and Dr.
Rhine, at Duke University, is far
from being alone in the field. Also,
he is not working in the most inter-
esting area — the area of the psionic
machine.

The problem, however, is going
to be exceedingly hard to handle.
First, the very statement "psionic ma-
chine” will call forth strong reactions
of denial from both the sincere
mystics, who are doing their own
research in the field of ESP, and
hold strongly that it is an essentially
human — nonmechanical — thing, and
from the physicists, who hold the
"psionic” concept is nonsense. The
mystic detests the idea of a psionic
machine; the physicist is outraged
at the idea of a psionic machine.

But the problem is to bridge the
gap between the purely-human detec-
tor — the mystic’s approach — and the
pure -machine -as -we -know -it, the

physicist's approach. What is needed
is a reproducible machine that can
detect a nonphysical phenomenon
which is also a psionic phenomenon.
When the photoelectric cell replaced
the observer’s eye, it could be cali-
brated and reproduced. When the
camera replaced the astronomer’s
eye, angular measurements could at-
tain a new order of precision.

I can obtain and run such articles.
They are appropriate to the essential
function of science fiction — that of
speculative consideration of those
phenomena of the Universe which
have not yet been fully understood,
fully worked out. But there is pow-

156

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION

erful resistance to the psionic ideas.
It must, necessarily, look like mysti-
cism — and because it is defined al-
most entirely by negation — even Dr.
Rhine defines it by negation; extra-
sensory perception specifically hold-
ing that it is not sensory — we will be
handling material that is in the same
category with frauds, charlatans, and
the work of the great religious and
political leaders; it won’t be honest
scientific reseach, because it lies out-
side of and beyond known science.

The work is being done; there
are psionic machines that have pro-
duced incredible results. It is the
necessary characteristic of all such
work that the results are clearly im-
possible. The entire field is full of
palpable nonsense, claims of things
that are obviously illogical, things
that anyone who knows anything
about the basic laws of science can
immediately recognize as obvious im-
possibilities.

For example, typical of several
psionic-machine devices and claims
is that the machine makes it possible
to analyze a mineral without the
mineral. That they can determine the
chemical composition of a mineral by
using the machine on a photograph
of the mineral. This is obvious and
errant nonsense.

So it is. It is also the consistent
report turned in by entirely separate
groups working on psionic machines
in different parts of the world.

We’re going to have to face a very
simple fact before we can start dis-
cussing articles on the researches
being done toward psionic machines.

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THE SCIENCE OF PSIONICS

157

The fact is this: Unless the machine
docs something known to be impossi-
ble there is no evidence of a new
field of research, is there?

The physicist wants the machine
to make sound, scientific, logical
sense — to behave in a sensible man-
ner, and do sensible, reasonable
things. When it does do something
sensible and understandable ... he
explains that what it has done is
nothing new. He can do the same
thing by physical means; it is clear,
therefore, he says, that there is no
advantage in this cumbersome con-
traption.

But if it does something he knows
cannot be done by any conceivable
application of any conceivable law
of science . . . then he denies that
the effect is real, because he knows
it is impossible.

If the psionic machine can analyze
minerals — and if you’re interested,
you might look up United States
Patent No. 2,482,773, issued to T.
G. Hieronymous — when they are
placed in the machine itself, it is
doing something that a lot of known
mechanisms can accomplish. There-
fore, there is no point in fussing
with i't, is there?

But if what the machine does is
clearly impossible, no one but a fool
would try doing it, or believe it was
not fraudulent if he saw it demon-
strated.

Very well, gentlemen, how will
you have it? The only possible proof
of a new discovery is a crucial ex-
periment. A crucial experiment re-
quires accomplishing an act, Q,

158

which can not be accomplished by
any previously known methods, but
can be demonstrated by the new
method.

But this means that proof of dis-
covery requires the demonstration
of the clearly impossible! Only doing
the "clearly impossible" can consti-
tute full proof of discovery.

Therefore, if you want articles on
the work that has been done on
psionic machines and ESP amplifiers
— gentlemen, work has been done.
There are reports — honestly worked
up reports — of much amateur work
and success with such devices. I can
obtain and publish such material.

But I must state clearly beforehand
that the statements made in such
articles will be claims of having ac-
complished things that any intelligent
modern man knows are clear, pure
nonsense — impossibilities. Precisely;

- that is the necessary condition for
proof of discovery.

What is the difficulty? Why, if
such work can be demonstrated, can’t
it be accepted in a more conventional
framework ?

The answer is that it is not demon-
stration that is lacking, but explana-
tion.

Assume for a moment that T. G.
Hieronymous is correct in his state-
ment that he can analyze a chemical
compound, by the use of his fully
described machine, by using a photo-
graph of the material. Let us suppose
that he demonstrates this phenome-
non before a group of chemists.

It won’t work for all of them,

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when they try it. Some get results;
some do not. Hieronymous can do it
— but he may not have a fully inte-
grated theory to explain why he gets
results.

That results in the actual present
situation; Hieronymous has a United
States Patent, because the Patent Of-
fice requires only that you specify
exactly how to do it. You are not
asked to explain why it works. The
Patent Office was designed to aid the
Nation’s economy, and a business-
man need not know why a device
works. He need only know how to
make it work, and be able to predict
whether it will work or what per-
centage of success he can expect. A
mechanism that works fifteen per cent
of the time is entirely satisfactory for
a business venture, remember. A
production line with ninety per cent
rejects isn’t ideal, of course, but it
can be highly profitable — well worth
while. I believe some of Western
Electric Company's exceedingly spe-
cial, and exceedingly critical tubes
show rejection rates as high or high-
er than that. The ten per cent or so
that do work do something so valu-

THE SCIENCE OF PSIONICS

able that they more than pay for the
failures.

The Patent Office, then, unlike a
scientific journal, doesn’t demand
that the inventor explain why his
device functions. That’s part of the
fact that you can not patent a Law of
Nature.

But science simply does not accept
that a thing works, nor is it satisfied
with how it works. It cannot be ac-
cepted until a logical bridge has been
built from known theoretical struc-
tures to the new concept.

Einstein built a logical-mathemati-
cal bridge to the concepts of relativ-
ity, and predicted the "impossible”
phenomenon of light "falling” in a
gravitational field. Because he could
build a logical bridge, his work was
accepted. If, instead, Einstein had
studied solar eclipse pictures, and
insisted that the stars moved when
the Sun was near them, he would
have been laughed out of sight.

He would have been wrong of
course; the stars do not move. But
his observations of the shift of star-
hnages would have been dismissed
with him. The effect is, after all, so
small that it can be determined only

159

with the greatest difficulty; the errors
of measurement are nearly as great
as the effect being measured. It would
certainly be easier to dismiss the phe-
nomenon as measurement error, rath-
er than to accept that, somehow, the
stars were being shifted by the pas-
sage of the Sun, and seek a whole
new cosmology based on that !

Of course, since Einstein actually
provided the whole new cosmology,
all neatly worked out for them —
they could accept it.

A while back, I mentioned in these
pages, the idea of the individual who
could see ultraviolet in a world of
people who could not. Let us suppose
we have a population wherein about
one individual in one thousand has
the ability to see ultraviolet. One of
these individuals, experimenting with
devices, finds that it is possible to
detect the nature of a mineral by
the UV fluorescence of the mineral
when it is struck by X rays. That
is ... it is possible for one who can
see UV.

But he doesn’t know what UV is;
he simply knows by experience that
he can see a difference. About one
in a thousand who investigate
his claims finds that he’s absolutely
right . . . but can’t explain it either.
Because, v/e must assume, the level
of the science at that time has not
discovered UV radiation, hasn’t in-
vented photography, and hasn’t in-
vented photoelectric cells.

It doesn’t matter a bit that he’s
right; he can’t explain it, nor can
he explain why some individuals can

160

and others cannot do it. Those who
cannot outnumber those who can
nine hundred ninety-nine to one; he
is, necessarily, in the spot of saying
"All nine hundred ninety-nine of you
are incompetent; only he is com-
petent,” but not being able to ex-
plain to the nine hundred ninety-nine
what he means by "competent.”

I published an editorial on "Or-
ganic Detectors” a while back. The
reading and investigating I’ve done
indicates that organisms, living en-
tities, are necessary as part of the
psionic machine, so far. Usually, the
human being who is doing the work
is also the detector, though a mecha-
nism is used to amplify the phenom-
enon he is to detect. After all, a
telescope can’t see anything; it’s capa-
ble of amplifying the image, how'-
ever, so that a sensitive human being
can see it.

But the evidence that’s come in so
far seems to show that most human
beings are not sensitive enough to
be able to use the crude amplifier
devices so far developed. Some work
done in England appeared to have
a magnificent line on the problem,
because photographic plates were
able to detect the results. Dozens of
different operators had used the ma-
chine successfully, though special
adjustments had to be made for in-
dividual operators. Things seemed to
be really booming beautifully . . .
until it was found that the photo-
graphic plates did not work unless
their darkroom technician handled
them. It wasn’t that he marked them,
put images on them, or anything of

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the sort; it was simply that he in some
unanalyzable, inexplicable manner
hypersensitized them so that other
men could use them. Unfortnuately,
no other individual having that char-
acteristic has been found.

Experimenting in the field is, in
consequence, most uncertain. You
may duplicate the mechanism that
worked magnificently for A . . . and
find it does nothing whatever. Why?
What do you want, a research proj-
ect, or to build something according
to a fully-worked-out engineering
diagram? If the latter, you can amuse
yourself building a television receiv-
er, or an electric motor, or a gasoline
engine.

If you want true frontier research,
you can try the psionic machine ex-
periments. Being frontier work, it
probably won’t work for you when
built the way it is supposed to be.
You may succeed in modifying it so
it does work for you — and find that
it won’t work without you. Or, again,
you might be one of those who just
"hasn’t got it,” whatever "it” is, and
isn’t going to have it. If you have

THE SCIENCE OF PSIONICS

good sense, you’ll stay away from the
field, because it’s going to cost time,
money and effort — and it’s fasci-
nating work.

In optics, the unsolved problem
is how to build a ruling engine that
can make perfect twelve-inch or
larger diffraction gratings. A number
of people have tried. The story has
it that getting started on the job is
fatal; people stop trying only when
they are too broke to try any more.

The history of the psionic machine
research is of that order. It’s bad
business to get started in it; people
who have seem to be stuck with the
research. It starts with a simple little
contraption that produces weird and
wonderful effects . . . very unreliably.
Further research makes the contrap-
tion more complex, more reliable —
and more expensive.

Eventually, a stage is reached
where it shows high reliability for
its inventor — and won’t work for
others. The original crude device
usually works, unreliably of course,
for many people. The reliable ma-
chine, however, works only for one.

I strongly recommend that you

161

keep that fact in mind; the work
evidently has a powerful tendency
to draw in more and more of the
researcher’s attention and efforts.
Keep away from it; it'll break you
if you get started.

But it is fascinating to read about.
If you readers indicate interest, I’ll
get hold of some articles on what
has been, and is being done. Before
I do so, however, it is necessary that
it be fully realized that such articles
will, necessarily, discuss devices that:

1. Work unreliably, or work only
under seemingly arbitrary condi-
tions, and usually work only for
one individual.

2. Of which it is claimed they do
the obviously impossible.

3. Demonstrations can be reported,
in which the obviously impossi-
ble, errant nonsense, was seem-
ingly demonstrated.

4. The explanations offered are in-
adequate, unconvincing, and can-
not be verified by experiment.

5. But . . . devices which, developed
by totally isolated individuals or
groups, -working without knowl-
edge of each other, have none the
less demonstrated similar impos-
sible phenomena. For example,
they agree in full with the law
of Sympathetic Magic that a part
of a thing is equal to the whole,
and that what is done to an image
of the thing is done to the whole.
That things can be done to a
photograph that affect the original
of the picture.

6. Most of them combine light and
electronics in their operation.

7. Most of the groups have started
with very simple gadgets that can
be home made. They start off
about as complex as an Ouija
board, and wind up with an
electro-optical bankruptcy device.

I think that’s fair and honest
warning. Honest and sincere work
is being done; there are machines.
If you want, we can have reports on
them. I can get reports written not
by the people engaged in the work,
but by someone who can make a
simple statement of the physical
structure of the device, where the
inventor agrees, and a direct state-
ment of demonstrations and claims
made for it.

My personal hunch is that these
individuals and groups are prodding
at the edges of a new field that will
open a totally new' concept of the
Universe. And that, within the next
twenty years, the barrier will be
cracked; a reproducible machine will
be achieved when a valid theory of
operation is achieved — and not be-
fore. But I believe that that can be,
and will be done before 1975.

In the meantime, it might be in-
teresting to see what sort of common
principles are emerging from these
amateur efforts toward a new' field
of science.

If you want a series of such re-
ports — it’s your right to indicate
policy. I’ll carry it out.

The Editor

162

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